The Hair Cut That Went To My Head

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Title:     The Hair Cut That Went To My Head
Author: Robert Cortes Holliday [More Titles by Holliday]

I did not expect anything in particular when I went in. Though, indeed, it is a very famous place. That is, the hotel is--the Brevoort.

The name itself, Brevoort, is very rich in romantic Knickerbocker associations. Probably you know all about that. Or, possibly, you don't know--or have forgotten. Well, you do know how Broadway curves around there at Tenth Street. That ought to recall Hendrick Brevoort to you. His farm was all about this neighborhood. Caused this kink, he did, so it is said.

This valorous descendant of the old burgher defied the commissioners to destroy his homestead, which lay in the proposed path of Broadway. Or to cut down a favorite tree which blocked the intended course of Eleventh Street. Stood at his threshold with a blunderbuss in his trembling old hands (so the story has it), when the workmen arrived to carry out their instructions to demolish the house--and carried his point so effectively that Broadway was deflected from its course, while Eleventh Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue was never completed. Grace Church, which now stands at about where valiant Henry stood that day, was built by a descendant of his, the architect also of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

I like to think of these matters sometimes when I enter the cool cream beauty of this ancient frame hostelry.

Also of another Henry Brevoort, a descendant of the original proprietor of the farm in New Netherland, who built the substantial old double house at the corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Fine iron balconies, pillared door, within a small green enclosure, and a walled garden to one side: all preserved.

Here was held (in 1840) the first masked ball given in New York. An affair of picturesque celebrity, on account of the occasion it furnished a famous beauty of the day, Miss Mathilda Barclay, daughter of Anthony Barclay, the British consul, to elope in fancy dress, domino and mask with a certain young Burgwyne of South Carolina, of whom her parents had unamiable views. She went as Lalla Rookh and he as Feramorz, and in this disguise they slipped away from the ball, at four in the morning, and were married. That, it seems to me, is the way for a man who does not enjoy solemn ceremonies to be happy while getting married.

Across the way, at the corner of Eighth Street, the mellow white hotel maintains the distinguished name, and touches "the Avenue" with a very aromatic French flavor. Famous for its cuisine, largely patronized by the transient French population of the city, a habitual port of call of many painters and writers, the scene of the annual Illustrators' Ball, and so on.

I like within the frequent spectacle of gentlemen of magnificent bulk and huge black beards, in general effect impressively suggesting the probability of their all being Academicians. I like the fact (or the hypothesis) that all the waiters are Looeys and Sharses and Gastongs. I like the little marble-top tables with wire spindle legs. I like the lady patrons (Oh! immensely) who are frequently very chic (and with exquisite ankles). I like the young gentlemen customers, who (many of them) look exactly as though their faces were modelled in wax, and who wear the sort of delicate moustaches that are advertised in Vanity Fair.

But even more I like the quaintness of the scene without doors. There along the curb, you recall, stand (in summer beneath the pleasant greenery of drooping trees), awaiting hire, a succession of those delightful, open, low-swung, horse-drawn vehicles, victorias, which were the fashionable thing at the period named by Mrs. Wharton "The Age of Innocence." The romantically leisurely drivers of these unbelievably leisurely craft are perfectly turned out to be, so to say, in the picture. They affect coachmen's coats (piquantly tempered by age) with large silver buttons and, in mild weather, top hats constructed of straw, painted black. In some instances these coachmen are "colored"--which is a very pleasant thing, too, I think.

This hotel, naturally, has figured in a number of pieces of fiction. In Samuel Merwin's novel "The Trufflers" it is the Parisian, where Greenwich Village, when in funds, dines, lunches, breakfasts in the little rooms which you enter from the Avenue, directly under the wide front steps, or from the side street through the bar, and where Upper West Side, when seeking the quaintly foreign dissociated from squalor, goes up the steps into the airy eating rooms with full length hinged windows to dine. And where (in this book) the young lady whose blooming presence in the barber shop in the basement invites you to manicure attentions gives rise to some very dramatic occurrences. The place, this shop, of Marius (as called in the story), "the one barber in New York who does not ask 'Wet or dry.'"

Now I had plumb forgotten about this barber's celebrity in fiction when the other day I entered this shop. And I was struck with embarrassment by the immediate attentions of so very distinguished a figure as that which sprang forward to assist me out of my coat. I thought surely this gentleman must be some kind of an Ambassador, who had perhaps mistaken me for the President. A slimmish man, obviously very French. Amazingly, overwhelmingly polite. Fine, a very fine beard. Long. Swept his chest. Pointed. Auburn. Wavy. Silken. Shot delicately with grey. Beautifully kept. Responded gently to the breeze--waving softly to and fro. A most beautiful beard--oh, my! And a glorious crown of hair! It rose from the line of its parting in a billowing wave, then fell with a luxuriant and graceful sweep to his ear. Only when he had tucked me in the chair could I realize that this must be the head barber. I had never before had the honor of being served by, or even of having seen himself, the proprietor here.

Then I mentioned Mr. Merwin's book. He took from a drawer several copies of The Saturday Evening Post, in which periodical the story had appeared serially, proudly to exhibit them to me. So it was we fell to chatting of his place. He had been here some sixteen or eighteen years. Before he had opened his shop this room had been several tiny rooms; Cleveland Moffett had for a time occupied them as a residence, and had here written his first book. My friend gayly produced a copy of an old magazine article by Mr. Moffett in which mention was given the shop.

* * * * *

Shaved, I was straightened up to have my hair trimmed. And, being for a moment free to look about. I spied a card on the wall. It said:

SILK HATS IRONED
25¢
COUP-DE-FER-AU CHAPEAU

But, my goodness! That was not all. No, indeed!

This very man who was cutting my hair had cut the hair of General Joffre--when he had his hair here in the United States. At "Mr. Frick's house," where they were guests, he had attended the distinguished party on its mission here. He would go in the morning, stay until they had gone forth for the day; return in the afternoon, and spruce them up for their evening out.

And what did they say, these great men of might?

Well, Joffre didn't say much. They were always out late--hurry out again. He shaved some of them "almost in the bath." That fellow, the Blue Devil,--one leg--cane--but back and forth from his bath quick like anybody. He was the most talkative:

"I could not but laugh at what he told me. I asked, 'Do you speak English?' 'No,' he said, 'but I ought to.' 'How is that?' I asked. 'Because,' he said, 'I'm half American.' 'Oh!' I said, 'your father then was American and your mother French?' 'No,' he said. 'Ah!' I say, 'then your mother was American and your father was French.' Do you understand? I say that to him. 'No,' he say; 'no.' 'What then?' I ask. 'Why,' he say, 'I have one leg in France and one leg in America.' I could not but laugh. Do you understand?"

When the visitors had departed Mr. Frick asked my friend for his bill. "Oh, no!" he said; "he would take nothing but the great honor for his little services."

My hair cut was finished. As I paid him (there being in this case, I felt, no such great honor for his little services), he showed me a drawing on the wall of a poodle he had one time owned. It had died. Very sad. He was very fond of dogs. Of bred dogs, that is. He bred them himself. He handed me his card as a professional dog fancier. It read:

CHINK A TU KENNELS
CHOW CHOWS, PEKINGESES, POMERANIANS, ALL COLORS
FROM PRICE WINNING STOCK
MINIATURE SPECIMENS
AT STUD. PEKINGESE, WONDERFUL SON OF WENTY
OF HYDEGREE. FEE REASONABLE.
AT STUD. LORD CHOLMONDELEY III SON OF CHAMPION
LORD CHOLMONDELEY II.
TOY DOGS BOARDED
MME. HENRI GRECHEN

Yes, that morning he had done "some manicure work" for his dogs. She looked up, the manicurist (milk-white blonde, black velvet gown), and said, "Do you use the clippers?"

He: "Yes, of course. But not powder and polish. Quick, they want. Not hold hands for hour--conversation about best show in town."

He bowed, very low, as I crossed his threshold. I turned and bowed, very low, to him. A man of many parts and a barber illustrious in his profession. It was some time before my head cooled off.

[The end]
Robert Cortes Holliday's essay: Hair Cut That Went To My Head

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