Shaving brush (ii)

The shaving brush is designed to make shaving soap into lather, and also to prepare the face for shaving, by spreading the lather onto the face and moistening and exfoliating the skin. The same quality of the bristles that makes it a good instrument for forming lather also serves this second purpose. I'm not sure what this is metaphor for, maybe for the scholar's brain in which the same qualities serve both to do research and also write up the results. It seems like two processes but it is really one. You read with an eye to writing later, and write with the knowledge gained from reading.