QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS.
Kissing is not to be talked about; one practical demonstration is worth a thousand prosaic descriptions. The emotions of anger, fear, doubt, hope, and joy have been appropriately described; but no one has done justice to a warm, loving kiss. Among the attempts which have been made is one by a young lady still in the dreamy regions of girlhood. She sings,—
This is cold enough, surely. Here is something better; the heart has made advances and speaks from experience:
Alexander Smith seems to have been electrified by a kiss; one made him feel as if he were “walking on thrones,”—a figure quite as remarkable as the old deacon’s, who, upon taking too much apple-brandy, likened his sensations to being on top of a meeting-house and having every shingle turned into a Jew’s-harp. But let us hear Alexander:
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KISSING.
What’s in a kiss? Really, when people come to reflect upon the matter calmly, what can we see in a kiss? The lips pout slightly and touch the cheek softly, and then they just part, and the job is complete. There is a kiss in the abstract! View it in the abstract, take it as it stands, look at it philosophically, what is there in it? Millions upon millions of souls have been made happy, while millions upon millions have been plunged into misery and despair, by this kissing; and yet when you look at the character of the thing, it is simply pouting and parting of the lips. In every grade of society there is kissing. Go where you will,—to what country you will,—you are perfectly sure to find kissing. There is, however, some mysterious virtue in a kiss, after all.
THE SCIENCE OF KISSING.
People will kiss, though not one in a hundred knows how to extract bliss from lovely lips, any more than they know how to make diamonds from charcoal; yet it is easy enough, at least for us. First know whom you are going to kiss; don’t make a mistake, although a mistake may be good. Don’t jump up like a trout for a fly and smack a woman on the neck, or the ear, or the corner of her forehead, or on the end of her nose. The gentleman should be a little the taller; he should have a clean face, a kind eye, and a mouth full of expression. Don’t kiss everybody; don’t sit down to it; stand up; need not be anxious about getting in a crowd. Two persons are plenty to corner and catch a kiss; more persons would spoil the sport. Take the left hand of the lady in your right; let your hat go to—any place out of the way; throw the left hand gently over the shoulder of the lady and let it fall down the right side. Do not be in a hurry; draw her gently, lovingly, to your heart. Her head will fall submissively on your shoulder, and a handsome shoulder-strap it makes. Do not be in a hurry. Her left hand is in your right; let there be an impression to that, not like the gripe of a vice, but a gentle clasp, full of electricity, thought, and respect. Do not be in a hurry. Her head lies carelessly on your shoulder; you are heart to heart. Look down into her half-closed eyes; gently, but manfully, press her to your bosom. Stand firm; be brave, but don’t be in a hurry. Her lips are almost open; lean slightly forward with your head, not the body; take good aim; the lips meet; the eyes close; the heart opens; the soul rides the storms, troubles, and sorrows of life (don’t be in a hurry); heaven opens before you; the world shoots under your feet as a meteor flashes across the evening sky (don’t be afraid); the heart forgets its bitterness, and the art of kissing is learned! No fuss, no noise, no fluttering or squirming like that of hook-impaled worms. Kissing doesn’t hurt, nor does it require an act of Congress to make it legal.
That reverend wag, Sydney Smith, says, “We are in favor of a certain amount of shyness when a kiss is proposed; but it should not be too long, and, when the fair one gives it, let it be administered with warmth and energy,—let there be soul in it. If she closes her eyes and sigh immediately after it, the effect is greater. She should be careful not to slobber a kiss, but give it as a humming-bird runs his bill into a honeysuckle, deep but delicate. There is much virtue in a kiss when well delivered. We have the memory of one we received in our youth, which lasted us forty years, and we believe it will be one of the last things we shall think of when we die.”
THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS.
THE SOUND OF A KISS.
A kiss is a difficult thing to describe on paper with only the unyielding, unimpressible materials of pen and ink; but it has been courageously attempted by a wag who had been at a wedding, “all of which he saw, and part of which he was.” Having “seen it done and performed, and heard the reverberation,” he describes a kiss as follows:
“This is the age of improvement, ladies and gentlemen; stand back and you will see a kiss on paper. Don’t be incredulous. I will give you the sound in types. Listen:
“When two pairs of affectionate lips are placed together to the intent of osculation, the noise educed is something like to the ensuing,
Epe-st’ weep’ st-e’ ee!
and then the sound tapers off so softly and so musically that no letters can do it justice.
“If any one thinks my description imperfect, let him surpass it if he can, even with a pen made from a quill out of Cupid’s wing.”
Another writer describes the acoustic phenomena of the process in the following stanzas:
THE DANGEROUS SIDE.
THE LEGAL VIEW.
POOR ENCOURAGEMENT.
An Iowa school-teacher was discharged for the offence of kissing a female assistant. Whereupon a local paper inquired, “What inducement is there for any person to exile himself to the country districts of Iowa to direct the young idea in its musket-practice, if he is to be denied the ordinary luxuries of every-day life? If a Platonic exercise in osculation, occasionally, cannot be connived at, where are the mitigating circumstances in the dreary life of a Western schoolmaster? We give it up.”
KINDLY CAUTION.
A young fellow in a Western town was fined ten dollars for kissing a girl against her will, and the following day the damsel sent him the amount of his fine, with a note saying that the next time he kissed her he must be less rough about it, and be careful to do it when her father was not around.
RETALIATION.
The following colloquy occurred in an English divorce-case. Mr. Sergeant Tindal, “He treated her very kindly, did he not?” Atkinson, “Oh, yes, very; he kissed her several times.” Mr. Sergeant Tindal, “And how did she treat him?” Atkinson, “Well, she retaliated.”
AN EXPENSIVE KISS.
An interesting suit for damages was tried in the Circuit Court of Sauk County, Wisconsin. The title of the case was Helen Crager vs. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company. The facts are substantially as follows. The plaintiff, who is a good-looking, interesting young lady, twenty-one years of age, and a school-teacher, on the 6th of March, 1873, bought a ticket of the company’s ticket-agent at Reedsburg, for Baraboo, and took a seat in a passenger-car attached to a mixed train. When within a few miles of her destination, the plaintiff, being at the time alone with the conductor (the only other passenger and an employé of the company having left the car), was caressed and kissed by the conductor. There being nothing in the lady’s manner to induce such familiarity, the ticket-puncher was, soon after the occurrence, arrested upon a charge of assault and battery. He pleaded guilty, was fined twenty-five dollars by the justice, and discharged by the company. The court ruled as a matter of law that the company was liable for the plaintiff for actual damage occasioned by the wrongful act of the conductor. The case was well argued, and submitted to the jury, who returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and assessed her damages at one thousand dollars.
TWENTY SHILLINGS FINE.
A noteworthy trial may be found among the proceedings of a Connecticut court held at New Haven, May 1, 1660. In this case, the kisser was Jacob M. Murline, and the kissee was Miss Sarah Tuttle. It was demonstrated that Jacob “tooke up or tooke away her gloves. Sarah desired him to give her the gloves, to which he answered he would do so if she would give him a kysse, upon which they sat down together, his arme being about her waiste, and her arme upon his shoulder or about his neck, and he kyssed her and she kyssed him, or they kyssed one another, continuing in this posture about half an hour.”
On examination, the amatory Jacob confusedly admitted that “he tooke her by the hand, and they both sat down upon a chest, but whether his arme were about her waiste, and her arme upon his shoulder or about his neck, he knows not, for he never thought of it since till Mr. Raymond told him of it at Mannatos, for which he was blamed, and told he had not layed it to heart as he ought.” Jacob and Sarah were each fined twenty shillings. So much for two centuries ago.
BREACH OF PROMISE.
Breach-of-promise trials are of frequent occurrence in the English courts, and any contribution to the law of the subject is received with interest. The English papers, therefore, comment with great relish upon the definition of a marriage engagement given by Judge Neilson, of Brooklyn, who, in a suit for money damages for blighted affections, charged the jury that the “gleam of the eye and the conjunction of the lips are overtures when they become frequent and protracted.” In the face of such a decision he is a rash man who would say, in the words of the song, “I know an eye both soft and bright,” and that variety of kiss known as the “lingering” is positively interdicted to gentlemen who do not mean business, or who are liable to a change of mind.
THE INGENUITY OF THIEVES.
When the Pope’s chamberlain, who was captured by Italian brigands, paid fifty thousand francs as ransom-money to the leader of the band, the sight of the money so transported him that he fell on his knees and begged to kiss the hand of his captive before he departed. The prelate stretched out his hand to him, forgetting that he wore a ring of great value, which the scoundrel, as he kissed the hand, slyly slipped over the finger and appropriated to himself.
This incident was more than paralleled by French dexterity in a case which is thus reported by a Paris correspondent:
There is a pretty little creature who has bestowed upon herself the cognomen of Diane de Bagatelle, with whom a well-known young viscount is madly in love. Mlle. Diane is a very romantic young lady, with a taste for the plays and novels of the younger Dumas, and especially for the “Dame aux Camellias.” So she was not surprised when one day the card of the Count de X——, the father of the viscount in question, was handed to her, and an elegant elderly gentleman, faultlessly dressed, and with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his button-hole, was ushered into her boudoir.
“My son loves Mademoiselle,” began the count, without further preface.
“I know it,” sighed Diane.
“He has——”
“A sister!” exclaimed the lady, remembering the interview between Marguerite Gautier and the elder Duval.
“No, not a sister, but a cousin,—his cousin Blanche, to whom he has been betrothed for years. She pines and weeps, and you, mademoiselle, you and your fatal charms are the cause.”
“Alas!” sighed Diane, feeling herself Doche and Blanche Pierson rolled into one and in real earnest.
“Your sensibility does you honor. Will you break with my son at once and forever? And if two hundred thousand francs——”
“Two hundred thousand francs!”
“I will draw you a check at once.”
“Sir,” exclaimed the lady, “you have not made appeal to a callous heart. I will make the sacrifice; I will give up Henri. You said, I think, two hundred thousand?”
“I did. Blessings on you, my child!” exclaimed the count, fervently. “Write the letter I shall dictate, and the check shall be yours.”
So down Diane sat, and penned the following epistle:
“Dear Henri, I love you no more. In fact, I never have loved you. I love another. Farewell forever.
“Diane.”
The count took the letter, inspected it carefully, and placed it in his pocket-book, from which he then drew a check for the amount named, which he placed in the lady’s eager hands.
“Allow me, my child, to raise to my lips the gentle hand that has just saved my son!” A kiss and a tear fell on the dainty hand together; it was then released, and the aged nobleman departed. He had not been long gone when Mlle. Diane discovered that her diamond ring, which was valued at ten thousand francs, had disappeared from her finger; and further investigations proved that her silverware and other articles of value had also vanished. The pretended count was no other than a swindler of the very worst type. The worst of the affair was that the scamp actually mailed the letter of Mlle. Diane to the viscount, so that the lady found herself minus an adorer as well as her valuables.
THE MEDICAL VIEW.
DON’T KISS THE BABY.
The promiscuous kissing of children is a pestilent practice. We use the word advisedly, and it is mild for the occasion. Murderous would be the proper word, did the kissers know the mischief they do. Yes, madam, murderous; and we are speaking to you. Do you remember calling on your dear friend Mrs. Brown the other day, with a strip of flannel round your neck? And when little Flora came dancing into the room, didn’t you pounce upon her demonstratively, call her a precious little pet, and kiss her? Then you serenely proceeded to describe the dreadful sore throat that kept you from prayer-meeting the night before. You had no designs on the dear child’s life, we know; nevertheless, you killed her! Killed her as surely as if you had fed her with strychnine or arsenic. Your caresses were fatal.
Two or three days after, the little pet began to complain of a sore throat too. The symptoms grew rapidly alarming; and when the doctor came, the single word diphtheria sufficed to explain them all. To-day a little mound in Greenwood is the sole memento of your visit.
Of course the mother does not suspect, and would not dare to suspect, you of any Instrumentality in her bereavement. She charges it to a mysterious Providence. The doctor says nothing to disturb the delusion; that would be impolitic, if not cruel: but to an outsider he is free to say that the child’s death was due directly to your infernal stupidity. Those are precisely the words: more forcible than elegant, it is true; but who shall say, under the circumstances, that they are not justifiable? Remember,
It would be hard to tell how much of the prevalent sickness and mortality from diphtheria is due to such want of thought. As a rule, adults have the disease in so mild a form that they mistake it for a simple cold; and, as a cold is not contagious, they think nothing of exposing others to their breath or to the greater danger of labial contact. Taking into consideration the well-established fact that diphtheria is usually if not always communicated by the direct transplanting of the malignant vegetation which causes the disease, the fact that there can be no more certain means of bringing the contagion to its favorite soil than the act of kissing, and the further fact that the custom of kissing children on all occasions is all but universal, it is not surprising that, when the disease is once imported into a community, it is very likely to become epidemic.
It would be absurd to charge the spread of diphtheria entirely to the practice of child-kissing. There are other modes of propagation: though it is hard to conceive of any more directly suited to the spread of the infection or more general in its operation. It stands to diphtheria in about the same relation that promiscuous hand-shaking formerly did to the itch.
It were better to avoid the practice. The children will not suffer if they go unkissed; and their friends ought for their sake to forego the luxury for a season. A single kiss has been known to infect a family; and the most careful may be in condition to communicate the disease without knowing it. Beware, then, of playing Judas, and let the babies alone.
EXCESSIVE GALLANTRY.
The late Marquis de Prades-Conti, ex-officer of the body-guard of Charles X., died from the effects of what might be called an excess of gallantry. He had never been ill a day, and retained all his activity in spite of his eighty-two years, but in stooping to kiss the hand of the Dowager Countess de la Rochepeon, who came to pay him a visit, he fell dead.
THE TREACHEROUS SIDE.
MADAME DE STAEL’S HYPOCRISY.
Coleridge was a man of violent prejudices, and had conceived an insuperable aversion for France, of which he was not slow to boast. “I hate,” he would say, “the hollowness of French principles; I hate the republicanism of French politics; I hate the hostility of the French people to revealed religion; I hate the artificiality of French cooking; I hate the acidity of French wines; I hate the flimsiness of the French language.” He would inveigh with equal acrimony against the unreality and immorality of the French character of both sexes, especially of the women; and in justification of his unmeasured invective, he related that he was one day sitting tête-à-tête with Madame de Staël in London, when her man-servant entered the room and asked her if she would receive Lady Davey. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders, and appeared to shudder with nausea as she turned to him and said, “Ah, ma foi! ô, mon cher ami! ayez pitié de moi! Mais quoi faire? Cette vilaine femme! Comme je la déteste! Elle est, vraiment, insupportable!” And then, on her entry, she flung her arms around her, kissed her on both cheeks, pressed her to her bosom, and told her that she was more than enchanted to behold her.
But the query arises, have the French a monopoly of such conventional duplicity? or may we find its counterpart nearer home?
A JUDAS KISS.
This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it necessary to bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a kiss. A Judas order of kiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed Bella’s hand after giving it, “Upon your own showing, you vain heartless girl, puffed up by the doting folly of a dustman, I need have no relenting towards you.”
Dickens: Our Mutual Friend.
A WIFE’S INFIDELITY.
Heaven support thee, old man! thou hast to pass through the bitterest trial which honor and affection can undergo,—household treason! When the wife lifts high the blushless front, and brazens out her guilt; when the child, with loud voice, throws off all control, and makes boast of disobedience, man revolts at the audacity; his spirit arms against his wrong; its face, at least, is bare; the blow, if sacrilegious, is direct. But when mild words and soft kisses conceal the worst foe Fate can arm,—when amidst the confidence of the heart starts up the form of Perfidy,—when out from the reptile swells the fiend in its terror,—when the breast on which man leaned for comfort has taken counsel to deceive him,—when he learns that, day after day, the life entwined with his own has been a lie and a stage mime,—he feels not the softness of grief, nor the absorption of rage; it is mightier than grief, and more withering than rage; it is a horror that appalls.
Bulwer-Lytton: Lucretia.
ALGERINE REVENGE.
A tragic event occurred in a divorce court at Constantine, in Algeria. The wife of Bel-Kassem appeared before the Cadi and demanded a divorce from her husband on the ground that he had ill-treated her. In spite of the strenuous opposition of the respondent, the Cadi gave judgment in favor of the lady, who, triumphantly pronouncing the orthodox formula, “I repudiate thee,” bounced out of the court. The custom of the country wills that a defeated suitor kiss the judge upon the shoulder, to show that he acknowledges the justice of his sentence. In accordance with this usage, Bel-Kassem, in apparent submission, moved toward the Cadi. But as he drew near him his manner suddenly changed. Dashing aside his burnous, he sprang upon the unfortunate judge and drove his knife into his breast. The murderer then threw down his weapon and surrendered himself to the gendarmes, saying, quietly, “I have killed the Cadi because, according to the Koran, a judge who gives an unjust sentence deserves to be put to death.”
ALL FOR SHOW.
Little Antoinette, a lonely little girl, was glad to find any companions. “Mamma kisses me on the promenade,” she told them, in her artless way. “She never kisses me at home.”
Thackeray: The Newcomes.
THE KISS FULIGINOUS.
The Italian poet Francesco Gianni is the author of a remarkable sonnet, in which the avenging kiss of the demons for the kiss of treason is given with great power, following a no less powerful portraiture of Satan:
[Then the malefactor threw himself into his arms, and with mouth black and smoking—the kiss fuliginous—he gave back the kiss that he had given to Christ.]
FABULLA.
Martial in his “Epigrams” (xii. 93) makes the following hit:
“Fabulla has found out a way to kiss her lover in the presence of her husband. She has a little fool whom she kisses over and over again, when the lover immediately seizes him while he is still wet with the multitude of kisses, and sends him back forthwith, charged with his own, to his smiling mistress. How much greater a fool is the husband than the professed fool!”
Or, as Hay translates it:
WOMAN.
THE DESCENT FROM THE TREE.
THE FALSE LADY.
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST EDWARD II.
PERJURY.
LADY BOTHWELL’S LAMENT.
THE GAY DECEIVER.
THE LURES OF THE ENCHANTRESS.
CUPID’S WILES.
ARTIFICE.
THE SORROWFUL SIDE.
MARGARET.
The admirers of Goethe’s immortal tragedy “Faust” will remember the passage in which poor Margaret says to her lover:
Nor can they forget the simple song in which, while seated at her spinning-wheel, she gives utterance to her grief. The closing verses are these: