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Also, Tolkien's late note 'it was a characteristic of all Elves to be beardless' could be an indication that he intended to alter Círdan's description in some theoretical future edition of The Lord of the Rings...
... or, it could represent Tolkien simply forgetting what he had written, and forgetting what he had published actually, or both. Or, since his point concerned Men who did not live nearly so long as Elves (obviously), his meaning could have been quite general -- since Men could arguably not hope to reach whatever age constituted even one 'cycle', the general beardlessness of all Elves was still a solid factor here.
In other words: all Elves were beardless, until they reached a certain age -- but an age in which it did not matter with respect to the beardlessness of Men with Elvish heritage.
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