Europe Revised by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

Among the furbearing races the adult male of the French species easily / excels. Some fine peltries are to be seen in Italy, and there is a type / of farming Englishman who wears a stiff set of burnishers projecting / out round his face in a circular effect suggestive of a halo that has / slipped down. In connection with whiskers I have heard the Russians / highly commended. They tell me that, from a distance, it is very hard / to distinguish a muzhik from a bosky dell, whereas a grand duke nearly / always reminds one of something tasty and luxuriant in the line of / ornamental arborwork. The German military man specializes in mustaches, / preference being given to the Texas longhorn mustache, and the walrus / and kitty-cat styles. A dehorned German officer is rarely found and a / muley one is practically unknown. But the French lead all the world in / whiskers -- both the wildwood variety and the domesticated kind trained / on a trellis. I mention this here at the outset because no Frenchman / is properly dressed unless he is whiskered also; such details properly / appertain to a chapter on European dress.

Probably every freeborn American citizen has at some time in his life / cherished the dream of going to England and buying himself an outfit of / English clothes -- just as every woman has had hopes of visiting Paris and / stocking up with Parisian gowns on the spot where they were created, and / where -- so she assumes -- they will naturally be cheaper than elsewhere. / Those among us who no longer harbor these fancies are the men and women / who have tried these experiments.