In “The Tour of Dr. Syntax,” Combe gives us the following amusing passages:
PRENTICEANA.
The following epigrammatic hits are from the pen of George D. Prentice, the late distinguished editor of the “Louisville Journal”:
We once had a female correspondent who wrote, “When two hearts are surcharged with love’s electricity, a kiss is the burning contact, the wild leaping flame of love’s enthusiasm.” This is certainly very pretty, but a flash of electricity is altogether too brief to give a correct idea of a truly delicious kiss. We agree with Byron that the “strength” of a kiss is generally “measured by its length.” Still, there should be a limit, and we really think that Mrs. Browning, strong-minded woman as she is, transcends all reasonable limits in her notion of a kiss’s duration. Why, she talks in her “Aurora Leigh” of a kiss
That indeed must be “linked sweetness” altogether too “long drawn out.”
An exchange says that we have a right to take an umbrella or a kiss without permission whenever we can. Well, but if the umbrella isn’t returned the fault is ours; if the kiss isn’t, it is the lady’s.
Surely it is a blessed privilege to be kissed by the breeze that has kissed all the pretty women in the world.
“That’s very singular, sir,” said a young lady when we kissed her. “Ah, well, we’ll soon make it plural.”
As Claude R.’s wife sat quietly in the twilight, a fellow stole behind her and kissed her. “Is it Claude?” she asked, hurriedly. “No, dear madam.” A moment afterwards he was heard to exclaim, “Oh, yes, I am clawed now, indeed I am.”
A female correspondent suggests a condition on which she will give us a kiss. We feel in duty bound to say to her that kissing is a thing that, at every proper opportunity, we set our face against.
Last evening we chanced to see a pair of interesting lovers kissing at an open lattice. Young people! that was very improper lattice-work.
“Is the smoke of my cigarette unpleasant to you, sir?” “Oh, no, madam: I would rather inhale smoke from your beautiful lips than taste kisses from any others.”
Return a kiss for a blow.—Sunday-School Union.
Always provided the giver of the blow be a pretty girl.
A beautiful young girl has just sent us a basket of fruit, the very sight of which, she thinks, must make us smack our lips. We thank her, and would greatly prefer smacking hers.
A kiss on the forehead denotes respect and admiration; on the cheek, friendship; on the lips, love. The young men of our acquaintance have not much “respect” for young ladies.
According to the New York “Express,” nine thousand ladies of that city shook hands with Mr. Clay, and kissed him, or were kissed by him, in the brief space of two hours. This was just seventy-five kisses to the minute, or considerably more than one to the second. We are not altogether sure that Mr. Clay, instead of kissing nine thousand girls in two hours, would not have preferred to select the prettiest one of the whole number and kiss her two hours.
If you doubt whether to kiss a pretty girl or not, give her the benefit of the doubt.
A young lady says that males are of no account from the time the ladies stop kissing them as infants till they commence kissing them as lovers.
We are never satisfied that a lady understands a kiss unless we have it from her own mouth.
A young lady’s first-love kiss has the same effect on her as being electrified. It’s a great shock, but it’s soon over.
A young physician asking permission of a lass to kiss her, she replied, “No, sir; I never like a doctor’s bill stuck in my face.”