One of the many fine features of Christopher Hibbert's biography Garibaldi And His Enemies is its excellent portraits of various bit-players in Garibaldi's fascinating life, amongst whom the monarch above features prominently enough to emerge as a bit of a star in himself. Apart from anything else (and there's a lot of that, including, unexpectedly, an appetite for sexual experience voracious enough to rival that of old Giuseppe himself) he was possessed of a fabulous moustache, to which, quite frankly, the portrait above fails to do justice. Hibbert memorably describes it in the following terms: …an immense moustache which swept up towards his little, grey eyes in a ferociously intimidating crescent. However, transcending the poetry of that is an extraordinary picture of said 'tache, well it's of the man himself but it's hard to get past the fabulous facial hair, on page 64 of the book (if you can get hold of it), which stunned me into silent admiration when I first saw it. What Mum would describe as a moustache and a half. The thing is simply an epic in itself.
Which made me wonder, what was it like to live behind that kind of growth? I mean so many of these nineteenth century chaps did so, after all. There's a friend of Garibaldi called Stefan Turr sporting an almost equally impressive moustache with an even better beard on page 180, for example. And why did they go out of style? It's like the disappearance of hats - inexplicable and sad. The world is a drabber place without its Victor Emmanuels. Probably safer though.
Which reminds me of Roald Dahl's odd obsession with beards. Remember The Twits, anyone?
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