Byssine days

"And I say, by the same token, don't get huffy, but why do you wear a beard?"

"Because I like the feel of it," said Zouch.

He had often been asked the question before and was quite prepared for it. He sometimes even welcomed it as a good opportunity for describing himself to people from his own point of view. But now he had a growing perceptivity that his byssine days were drawing to a close and that with a newly acquired social consciousness he would soon do better with bare cheeks. He could sense that change was in the air. A change for the better. But still while he wore a beard it was his duty to stick up for it.

—Anthony Powell, From a View to a Death