Part 3

The laws of husking every wight can tell, And sure no laws he ever keeps so well; For each red ear a general kiss he gains, With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains; But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast, Red as her lips, and taper as her waist, She walks the round and culls one favored beau, Who leaps the luscious tribute to bestow. Various the sports, as are the wits and brains Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains; Till the vast mound of corn is swept away, And he that gets the last ear wins the day.

IV.

KISSING IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES: IN ARABIA, EGYPT, RUSSIA, FINLAND, ICELAND, PARAGUAY—A PLEASING BUT PERPLEXING NORWEGIAN CUSTOM—THE “BLUE LAWS” OF CONNECTICUT—KISSING IN THE EYES OF THE LAW—MONEY VALUE OF A STOLEN KISS— SANITARY DANGERS OF KISSING—KISSING THE DYING—FAMOUS KISSES—THE BLARNEY STONE—SOULFUL KISSES—KISSING THE FEET OF BEGGARS.

The custom of kissing varies in different countries. The Arabian women and children kiss the beards of their husbands; the superior returns the salute by a kiss on the forehead. In Egypt, the inferior kisses the hand of a superior, generally on the back, but sometimes on the palm; the son kisses the hand of his father, the wife that of her husband, the slave, and often the free servant, that of the master; the slaves and servants of a grandee kiss their lord’s sleeve or the skirt of his clothing.

In Russia, the Easter salutation is a kiss. Each member of the family salutes the other; chance acquaintances on meeting kiss; principals kiss their employés; the General kisses his officers; the officers kiss their soldiers; the Czar kisses his family, retinue, court and attendants, and even his officers on parade, the sentinels at the palace gates, and a select party of private soldiers, probably elaborately prepared for this “royal salute.” In other parts, the poorest serf, meeting a high-born dame on the street, has but to say, “Christ is risen,” and he will receive a kiss and the reply, “He is truly risen.” The Empress Catherine of Russia instituted assemblies of men and women to promote the cultivation of polite manners. Among the rules for maintaining the decency of those assemblies she directed that “no gentleman should force a kiss from, or strike a woman in the assembly, under pain of execution.”

A most pleasant, tender, but, at the same time, perplexing salute, is that bestowed upon one by the women of Norway, who, after having put you to bed and tucked you up well between the sweet-smelling sheets, bend their fresh, fair faces, and kiss you honestly upon the beard, without a shadow even of shame or doubt.

In Finland, contrary to the usual custom, the women object to the practice of osculation. A Finnish matron, on hearing that it was a common thing in England for man and wife to kiss, expressed great disgust thereat, declaring emphatically that if her husband dared to take such a liberty, she would give him a box on the ears he would feel for a month!

In Iceland illegitimate and illicit kissing has had deterrent penalties of great severity. For kissing another man’s wife, with or without her consent, the punishment of exclusion, or its pecuniary equivalent, was awarded. A man rendered himself liable for kissing an unmarried woman under legal guardianship without her consent; and, even if the lady consented, the law required that every kiss should be wiped out by a fine of three marks, equivalent to 140 ells of wadmal, a quantity sufficient to furnish a whole ship’s crew with pilot jackets.

In Paraguay you are by force of custom obliged to kiss every lady you are introduced to, though this is not such an inestimable privilege as one would suppose, for there all the females above thirteen chew tobacco! But one-half of the young women you meet are really tempting enough to render you happy regardless of the consequences, and you would sip the dew of the proffered lip in the face of a tobacco factory—even in the double distilled honey-dew of old Virginia.

Under the notorious “blue laws” of Connecticut, no woman was allowed to kiss even her child on the Sabbath, or fasting day, under heavy penalties. Only a few years ago it was considered remarkable that a Western magistrate should impose a heavy fine and a term of incarceration upon an unfortunate fellow who had kissed a pretty girl on the ears without her consent, but police justices in New York have quite frequently imposed the same punishment for similar offenses that have occurred in recent years. In the eyes of the law, kissing a lady without her will and permission is a common assault, punishable by a fine and imprisonment. Some one of an inquiring turn of mind has tried to definitely determine the average money value of a stolen kiss in the United States. Court rulings show that the act of forced osculation in Pennsylvania costs $750, while in New York it is placed at $2,500. New Jersey, with a shocking disregard to the merits of the stolen sweets to be drawn from the ruby lips of her lovely lasses, puts the value of a kiss at $1.15. Kissing goes by favor is a trite saying, but the figures submitted indicate that the sands of Jersey offer the greatest inducements to indulge in this delightful diversion.

From the medical point of view there is danger in kissing. The spread of diphtheria, it is said, is largely due to the practice of kissing children. It is hard to conceive of any mode of propagation 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. A physician in explaining to a third party the warning he gave his wife not to let the children kiss any one, said: “I tell you it wasn’t Judas alone who betrayed with a kiss. Hundreds of lovely, blooming children are kissed into their graves every year. There is death in a kiss. The beloved and lamented Princess Alice, of Hesse, took diphtheria from the kiss of her child, and followed it to the grave. Diphtheria, malaria, scarlet fever, blood poison, death lurk in the kisses!”

There are superstitions about kissing. There is a man living at Luray, Virginia, who became convinced when young that kissing was wicked because Christ was betrayed with a kiss. He resolved never to kiss anybody. He has been married twenty years and is the father of eleven children, but has never kissed his wife or one of his offspring.

Among the quaint customs wherein kissing is involved is the surprisal of any person asleep by one of the opposite sex. In such a situation the drowsy party may be kissed with impunity, and must, in addition, pay the saluting party the forfeit of a pair of gloves.

St. Valentine has also a good deal of kissing to answer for. The osculatory customs of this holiday are capitally and graphically illustrated by Sir Walter Scott in “The Fair Maid of Perth,” where the heroine kisses her stalwart lover, Harry, on St. Valentine’s morning, and they afterwards exchange their betrothal gifts prepared on such occasions with much forethought and circumspection as to their suitability and appropriateness.

It was the custom among the Romans to give the dying a last kiss, in order, as they thought, to catch the parting breath. Spenser, in his pastoral elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, mentions it as a circumstance which renders the loss of his illustrious friend more to be lamented, that no one was nigh to close his eyelids “and kiss his lips.” A little after he notices the “dearest love” of the deceased weeping over him.

She, with sunset kisses, sucked the wasting breath Out of his lips, like lilies pale and soft.

When Lord Nelson was dying on board his flagship, he took leave of his faithful friend, Hardy, by kissing him. “Kiss me, Hardy!” he said, and these were the last words he uttered. And so, too, Sir Walter Scott, when dying, kissed Lockhart, saying, “Be good, my dear! be good.”

Many famous kisses might be mentioned. It is recorded in the book of Genesis that when Jacob kissed Rachel he “lifted up his voice and wept.” One of the funny writers has attempted to account for his weeping. He gives, among other reasons, that he wept because it was not time to kiss her again; because Rachel threatened to tell her ma; he wept because the damsel did not kiss him; he thought she was fast colors, and cried when the paint came off; when he lifted up his voice, he found it heavy, and could not get it so high as he intended; he wept because Rachel encouraged him to kiss her twice more, and he was afraid to do it; finally, he wept because his first enjoyment of the most delightful pleasure of life overcame him.

Duncan Mackenzie, a veteran of Waterloo, who died at Elgin, Scotland, in 1866, delighted in relating how he kissed the duchess in taking the shilling from between her teeth to become one of her regiment, the Gordon Highlanders, better known as the Ninety-second. The old Scottish veteran has not one left behind him to tell the same tale about kissing the blue-eyed duchess in the market-place of Dutkill.

There is a famous kiss in the “Beggar’s Opera.” It was given by Macbeth to Jenny Diver, and the unpleasant effect which it produced on him may be judged from the sarcastic remark: “One may know by your kiss that the gin is excellent.”

Petruchio gave his bride a kiss of enormous calibre. We are told that he “kist her lips with such a clamorous smack, that at the parting all the church echoed.” Tennyson speaks of the kiss given to Fatima by her lover:

Once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips—as sunlight drinketh dew.

Margarida gave her lover a kiss, which fact coming to the knowledge of her husband, he gave her the troubadour’s heart to eat, disguised as a savory morsel. When Queen Margaret kissed Chartier, the ugliest man in France, she exclaimed: “I kiss the soul that sings.” Voltaire was kissed in the stage-box at the theatre by the lovely Countess de Villars. John Milton, when a collegian, was kissed by a high-born Italian beauty; and Sterne, the novelist, says of kisses: “For my own part, I would rather kiss the lips I love than dance with all the graces of Greece, after bathing themselves in the springs of Parnassus. Flesh and blood for me, with an angel in the inside.”

Tom Hood once questioned whether the grave, sedate Hannah More had ever been kissed; and Horace Smith, in his “Rejected Addresses,” affirms that on a certain occasion:

Sidney Morgan was playing the organ, While behind the vestry door Horace Twiss was snatching a kiss From the lips of Hannah More.

Every one remembers the famous kiss imprinted by Mr. Bumble on the “chaste nose” of Mrs. Corney; and the still more famous kiss applied to the lips of Mary, the pretty housemaid, by Sam Weller. Sam had dropped his hat, which the housemaid picked up, and Sam kissed her.

“You don’t mean to say you did that on purpose?” said the pretty housemaid, blushing.

“No, I didn’t then,” said Sam, “but I vill now.” So he kissed her again.

“Sam!” said Mr. Pickwick, calling over the banisters.

“Coming, sir!” replied Sam, running up-stairs.

“How long you have been!” said Mr. Pickwick.

“There was something behind the door which perwented our getting it open for ever so long, sir,” replied Sam.

And this was the first passage of Mr. Weller’s first love.

The custom of kissing the Blarney Stone is explained as follows: In the year 1602, when the Spaniards were inciting the Irish chieftains to harass the English authorities, Cormac MacCarthy held, among other dependencies, the Castle of Blarney, and had concluded an armistice with the Lord-President, on condition of surrendering this fort to an English garrison. Day after day did his lordship look for the fulfillment of the compact, while the Irish Pozzo di Borgo, as loath to part with his stronghold as Russia to relinquish the Dardanelles, kept protocolizing with soft promises and delusive delays, until at last Carew became the laughing stock of Elizabeth’s ministers, and “Blarney talk” proverbial.

A popular tradition attributes to the Blarney Stone the power of endowing whoever kisses it with the sweet, persuasive, wheedling eloquence so perceptible in the language of the Cork people, and which is generally termed blarney. This is the true meaning of the word, and not, as some writers have supposed, a faculty of deviating from veracity with an unblushing countenance, whenever it may be convenient.

The curious traveler will seek in vain the _real_ stone, unless he allows himself to be lowered from the northern angle of the lofty castle, when he will discover it about twenty feet from the top, with the inscription, “_Cormac MacCarthy fortis me fierifecit, A. D. 1446_.” As the kissing of this would be somewhat difficult, the candidate for Blarney honors will be glad to know that at the summit, and within easy access, is another _real_ stone, bearing the date of 1703.

In Blarney Castle, on a crumbling tower, There lies a stone (above your ready reach), Which to the lips imparts, ’tis said, the power Of facile falsehood and persuasive speech; And hence, of one who talks in such a tone, The peasants say, “He’s kissed the Blarney Stone.”

The famous “soulful” kiss given to Fatima suggests the thought that such kisses are by no means new, though, in the present day, they may be out of fashion. In “Don Juan” Byron speaks of

Such kisses as belong to early days, When heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move.

Diagnosing such a kiss, the poet informs us that on such occasions the blood is like lava, the pulse is all ablaze, and each kiss of that kind he declares is a “heart-quake.”

In the time of Herrick there was an anonymous poet who thus philosophized on the “soulful kiss”:

Philosophers pretend to tell How, like a hermit in his cell, The soul within the brain does dwell. But I, who am not half so wise, Think I have seen’t in Chloe’s eyes; Down to her lips from thence it stole, And there I kiss’d her very soul.

The kings and queens of England in ancient times practiced the ceremony of washing the feet of beggars, in imitation of Christ, who washed the feet of His disciples. They washed and kissed the feet of as many poor people as they themselves numbered in years, and bestowed a gift, or _maunday_, upon each; the ceremony occurred on Maundy-Thursday. Queen Elizabeth performed this ceremony when she was thirty-nine years old— that is, she kissed the feet of thirty-nine paupers after their feet had been washed by yeomen of the laundry with warm water and sweet herbs, and afterward by the sub-almoner. The last of the English monarchs who performed this office in person was James II., in 1731, in his forty-eighth year. In 1530, on Maundy-Thursday, Cardinal Wolsey washed and kissed the feet of fifty-nine poor men, “and, after he had wiped them, he gave every one of the said poor men twelve pence in money, three ells of good canvas to make them shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cask of red herrings and three white herrings, and, to one of them, two shillings.” This custom is no longer observed, but the poor still receive their gifts from the royal bounty.

V.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF KISSES: THE LONG, LONG KISS, THE PAROXYSMAL, THE ICY, THE WESTERN, THE LIFE-TEEMING KISS— HOW COLLEGE GIRLS KISS—THE KISS OF A FEMALE CORNETIST— PLATONIC KISSES—ROMAN OSCULATION—CHARACTERISTICS OF KISSES—THE KISS AS A PUNISHMENT—THE KING OF BABY-KISSERS—THE KISS AFTER MARRIAGE—STOLEN KISSES, SOMETIMES CALLED “DAINTY BITS OF PLUNDER”—THE STORY OF A CIRCASSIAN GIRL.

There are a great many kinds of kisses. There is Byron’s “long, long kiss of youth and love.” A rural suitor kissed his girl repeatedly after this fashion. When he finally ceased, the tears came into her eyes, and she said, in sad tones: “Ah, Rufus! I fear you have ceased to love me!” “Oh, no, I haven’t,” he replied, with a wearied air, “but I must breathe!” The “paroxysmal kiss” has been described as a kiss “buttered with soul-lightning.” Very different from the kiss of a certain prominent actress:

Hail! kiss of Mary Anderson, all hail! All hail, we sing, for hail is ice in chunks, And Mary’s kisses are but chunks of ice. Brittle and snappy, with no sign of thaw, Or warmth that meets and pins two souls Together at the touch of lips.

There is a story told of a light, free-hearted Western girl—probably auburn-haired—who, while engaged in the osculatory performance with her lover, swooped down upon him like a summer fog upon a millstone and scooped him in. She sat in his lap and kissed him with a kissness which an emotional actress would have given ten years of her life to imitate upon the stage. It was an earthquake of love, a simoon of affection. She kissed him until his back hair smoked.

It is said that in nearly all the famous colleges for women there is a special teacher or doctress in physiology, and in the so-called oral recitations the pernicious effects of osculation are considered at great length. By way of tolerating what seems to be a necessary evil, various theories are advanced and various provisions advocated. The girl who comes from Smith College, Northampton, kisses on the oblique lines that fall from the left corner of your mouth, but when kissed, is so adroit in the way she jerks her head, that the point of salutation may be found on a radius from the right of her demure little mouth. The Vassar graduate kisses more than her Smith College friend, but the chin is her choice, as you will observe in an attempt to salute her. The seniors from Wellesley press their kisses high up on the face, almost under the sweep of the eyelash, and the Lake Forest and Harvard Annex maidens kiss at a point equally distant from the nose and ear.

Very peculiar is the kiss of the female cornetist. A young man who had attended a concert gives his experience. “I had known her in childhood, when we together hunted the same schoolmaster with bean-blowers, and at the conclusion of her cornet solo I greeted her for the first time in several years. Of course we kissed each other impulsively. Good heavens! That was my mental exclamation. I felt as though I had been hit with brass knuckles or smacked by a cast-iron image. I instinctively pressed my handkerchief to my benumbed mouth, and looked for the weapon with which I had been assaulted. It was the girl’s kiss, however, that I had felt. Good playing on the cornet depends upon the amount of inflexibility which can be imparted to the upper lip. Hers had become fairly adamantine.”

There is the “life-teeming kiss,” and, on the other hand, there is the Platonic kiss.

But what Platonic kisses were I doubt if Plato ever knew— Not like, my birdie, I infer, The long, sweet kisses I give you, And those you give me back again, Repeated oft, and never done; Not thus, I fancy, could it be Platonic brides were ever won.

As for the gallant Frenchman, he said:

Kiss me with some slow, heavy kiss, That plucks the heart out at the lips.

The Romans had different words to distinguish the different kinds of kisses. A kiss between two friends was called osculum; basium, a kiss of politeness; and suavium, a kiss of love. The Roman emperors saluted their principal officers by a kiss. Kissing the mouth or the eyes was the usual compliment upon any happy event. Soldiers kissed the hand of the general when he quitted his office. Fathers amongst the Romans had so much delicacy that they never embraced their wives in the presence of their daughters. Near relatives were allowed to kiss their female kindred on the mouth, but this was done in order to know whether they smelt of wine or not.

Kisses are forced, unwilling, cold, comfortless, frigid and frozen, chaste, timid, rosy, balmy, humid, dewy, trembling, soft, gentle, tender, tempting, fragrant, sacred, hallowed, divine, soothing, joyful, affectionate, delicious, rapturous, deep-drawn and inebriating, ardent, flaming and akin to fire, ravishing, lingering and long. One also hears of parting, tear-dewed, savory, loathsome, poisonous, treacherous, false, rude, stolen, and great fat noisy kisses.

There is the proud kiss, a pledge of eternal hatred, which strikes the recipient like a falling avalanche of Alpine snow. There is the icy kiss, which sends your heart into your boots and almost stifles the ebb and flow of one’s life-blood. There is the frothy kiss, which means nothing, and is common between relations and friends. There is the hypocritical, or Judas kiss, which gives you a convulsive bang of pretended affection on both cheeks—lips saying, “I am so glad to see you,” etc., and the heart saying, “I dislike you, and if I could show it, I would.” There is the spiteful kiss, which, whilst it seems teeming with sweetness, would like to impart venom with the embrace. There is the leather kiss, which gives back to the kisser no more feeling response than the orifice of a gutta-percha speaking-tube, and as comfortless as frozen water to a starved snake; and there is the noisy kiss.

There’s a formal kiss of fashion, And a burning kiss of passion, A father’s kiss, A mother’s kiss, And a sister’s kiss to move; There’s a traitor’s kiss of gold, Like a serpent’s clammy fold, A first kiss, A stolen kiss, And the thrilling kiss of love; A meeting kiss, A maiden kiss, A kiss when fond hearts sever, But the saddest kiss On earth is this— A kiss to part forever.

There is the first kiss of love:

When a youth and maid of demeanor gay, But still unversed in impassioned speech, Are seen to return from their stroll some day With a glorified look in the face of each— A look as of mingled life-tides set Hence evermore to a common goal— You may be sure that their lips have met In that kiss which compasseth soul with soul.

Moore sings of a lover who taught his sweetheart how to kiss in the dark, and chides her afterwards for her dullness in learning the lesson.

“Cease, cease,” the blushing girl replied, And in her milky arms she caught me; “How can you thus your pupil chide? You know _’twas in the dark_ you taught me!”

During the late rebellion, so much kissing had to be done on the part of the soldiers in bidding adieu to their female friends that an ingenious officer reduced the operation to three motions. First motion: Bend the right knee, straighten the left, bring the head on a line with the piece; at the same time extend the arms and clasp the cheeks of the piece firmly in both hands. Second motion: Bend the body slightly forward, pucker the mouth slightly, and apply the lips smartly to the muzzle mouldings. Third motion: Break off promptly in both legs to escape the jarring or injury should the piece recoil.