Part 4

There is the pleasing punishment of a kiss. In an anonymous poem, a lover tells what he would do to his sweetheart if she offended him; he would whip her with a feather, give her a cross of pearl, and smother her with roses.

And if she dared her _lips_ to pout, Like many pert young misses, I’d wind my arm her waist about And punish her with kisses.

One of the sweetest poems on the subject of a kiss is after Catullus, the Roman poet:

Kiss me softly, and speak to me low, Malice has ever a vigilant ear; What if Malice were lurking near? Kiss me, dear! Kiss me softly, and speak to me low.

Kiss me softly, and speak to me low, Envy, too, has a watchful ear; What if Envy should chance to hear? Kiss me dear! Kiss me softly, and speak to me low.

Kiss me softly, and speak to me low; Trust me, darling, the time is near, When we may love with never a fear. Kiss me, dear! Kiss me softly, and speak to me low.

In the spring of 1888 it was asserted of Congressman Lewis E. McComas, of Maryland, that he was the king of baby-kissers, having reduced baby-kissing to a fine art. The proceeding was something like this: First of all, Mr. McComas stands over the baby, and beams on it with his large, tender, hazel eyes. Then, as if moved by a sudden and irresistible impulse of affection, he snatches the little one to his bosom with all the fervor of the deserted stage mother. After pressing it for a moment with head bowed in emotion, he holds it in front of him in a horizontal position, beams once more on the little face; then his head slowly descends, there is an agonizing pause before the big moustache reaches the little lips, the angels hovering about suspend the flapping of their wings, a long-drawn sigh of joy proceeds from the Congressman’s breast, a low, sweet, lingering, honey-suggesting smack is heard—and the deed is done.

There used to be a minstrel ballad describing the wedding of our simian ancestor. It was said:

The monkey married the baboon’s sister, Smacked his lips, and then he kissed her— Kissed so hard he raised a blister—

After which, the chronicler asserts:

She set up a howl.

There is the kiss after marriage. A story is told of a wife who was scolding her husband because he had found fault with certain conduct of their daughter. The old gentleman lost all patience, finally.

“Now, see here, old woman,” said he, kindly, but firmly; “if you don’t hush your nonsense and dry up, I’ll tell Matilda’s beaux not to be caught swinging on the gate with her at night, and I’ll tell ’em why.”

“You will, hey?”

“Yes, I will; because when I was a courting young man, I was swinging on the gate with a young woman, one night, and Sam Solomon happened to pass by just as she gave me a good-night kiss.”

She commenced feeling around for something.

“It was the most unlucky kiss I ever got, for Sam gave up trying after that, and as soon as he got out of the way, it was me or nobody.”

It was lucky he got over the fence and around the corner as quick as he did, or the surgeon wouldn’t have had such an easy job of it.

You will find, my dear boy, that the dearly-prized kiss, Which with rapture you snatched from the half willing miss, Is sweeter by far than the legalized kisses You give the same girl when you’ve made her a Mrs.

It might be well to memorize one or two proverbs on this subject: “To kiss a man’s wife, or wipe his knife, is but a thankless office.” “He that kisseth his wife in the market-place shall have enough to teach him.”

Finally, there is the stolen kiss. The bold lover says:

Kiss her gently, but be sly, Kiss her when there’s no one by, Steal your kiss, for then ’tis meetest, Stolen kisses are the sweetest.

The more backward swain _argues_ the matter to himself:

If I should steal a little kiss, Oh! would she weep, I wonder? I tremble at the thought of bliss— If I should steal a little kiss: Such pouting lips would never miss The dainty bit of plunder; If I should steal a little kiss, Oh! would she weep, I wonder?

He longs to steal a kiss of mine— He may, if he’ll return it! If I can read the tender sign, He longs to steal a kiss of mine; “In love and war”—you know the line. Why cannot he discern it? He longs to steal a kiss of mine, He may, if he’ll return it.

And the man of observation has given his experience in the matter:

Beneath a shady tree they sat; He held her hand, she held his hat, I held my breath and lay right flat— They kissed—I saw them do it. He held that kissing was no crime; She held her head up every time; I held my peace, and wrote this rhyme, While they thought no one knew it.

The prudent Scotch girl has expressed the views of many of her sex in regard, not to the impropriety of kissing, but of kissing “before folk”:

Behave yourself before folk, And dinna be sae rude to me, As kiss me sae before folk. It’s no through hatred o’ a kiss, That I sae plainly tell you this, But, ah! I tak’ it sae amiss To be sae teased before folk. Behave yoursel’ before folk, When we’re alone, ye may tak’ one, But nent a ane before folk.

A Circassian was walking along one road, and a woman along another. The roads finally united, and reaching the point of junction at the same time, they walked on together. The man was carrying a large iron kettle on his back; in one hand he held the legs of a live chicken, in the other a cane, and he was leading a goat. They neared a dark ravine. Said the woman: “I am afraid to go through that ravine with you; it is a lonely place, and you might overpower me and kiss me by force.” Said the man: “How can I possibly overpower you and kiss you by force, when I have this iron kettle on my back, a cane in one hand, a live chicken in the other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be tied hand and foot.” “Yes,” replied the woman; “but if you should stick your cane in the ground and tie your goat to it, and turn the kettle bottom upward and put the chicken under, then you might wickedly kiss me in spite of my resistance.” “Success to thy ingenuity, O woman!” said the rejoicing man to himself; “I should never have thought of this or similar expedients.” And when they came to the ravine, he stuck his cane into the ground, and tied the goat to it, and gave the chicken to the woman, saying: “Hold it while I cut some grass for the goat,” and then—so runs the legend—lowering the kettle from his shoulders, he put the fowl under it, and wickedly kissed the woman, as she was afraid he would.

VI.

MEN KISSING EACH OTHER IN FRANCE, IN ENGLAND, AND IN GERMANY—ORIGIN OF THE CUSTOM OF KISSING THE POPE’S TOE— HENRY IV. AND HIS PUNISHMENT—KISSING THE FEET OF ROYALTY AN ANCIENT CUSTOM—KISSES AS REWARDS OF GENIUS—THE PART OSCULATION HAS PAID IN POLITICS—CURIOUS BARGAINS FOR KISSES—WHAT LEGALLY CONSTITUTES A KISS—A KISS AT AUCTION—GIVING $50 TO KISS EDWIN BOOTH.

To an Englishman, full of his insular reserve, there is something unmanly in the way men at a public railway station in France salute each other upon both cheeks; and yet in England itself it was at one time the recognized form of salutation. In Hone’s “Year Book” occurs the following passage:

“Another specimen of our ancient manners is seen in the French embrace. The gentleman, and others of the male sex, lay hands on the shoulders and touch the side of each other’s cheeks; but on being introduced to a lady, they say to her father or brother or friend, _permettez moi_, and salute each of her cheeks.”

During the time of James I. kissing was a common civility among men. Evelyn in his Diary and Correspondence, 1680, says in a letter to Mrs. Owen: “Sir J. Shaw did us the honor of a visit on Thursday last, when it was not my hap to be at home, for which I was very sorry. I met him since casually in London, and kissed him there unfeignedly.”

In Sir Walter Scott’s “Waverley,” after the Baron had shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him _à-la-mode Françoise_, and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to the eyes of his guest.

Among the Germans it is no uncommon sight to find two great, bearded and mustached giants, kissing each other like a pair of turtle doves. In July, 1888, when the Emperor William met the Russian Czar at St. Petersburg, the two rulers embraced and kissed each other several times.

There is no doubt, however, that Germans fully appreciate osculation between members of the opposite sex. In a well-known German novel, this passage occurs: “Sophia returned my kiss and the earth went from under my feet; my soul was no longer in my body; I touched the stars; I knew the happiness of Seraphim.” And it may be added, that an enthusiastic old German beau of former times declared, as the result of practical experience, that kissing was an infallible cure for the toothache!

Among the English the custom has become obsolete. As for women kissing each other, the modern rhymster says:

Men scorn to kiss among themselves, And scarce will kiss a brother; Women often want to kiss so much, They smack and kiss each other.

As to the custom of kissing the Pope’s toe, Matthew of Westminster writes that it was customary at one time to kiss the hand of His Holiness, but that a certain woman in the eighth century not only kissed the Pope’s hand, but squeezed it. The Pope, seeing the danger to which he was exposed, cut off his hand, and afterwards offered his foot.

But another authority says that kissing the Pope’s toe was a fashion introduced by one of the Leos, who had mutilated his right hand and was too vain to expose the stump.

In Charles Reade’s “Cloister and the Hearth,” there is a short dissertation on some curious kissing customs. Fra Colonna, enamored of the pagan days, overwhelms Brother Jerome with copious quotations, showing the antiquity and pagan origin of many modern ecclesiastical customs. “Kissing of images and the Pope’s toe is Eastern paganism,” said Fra Colonna. “The Egyptians had it of the Assyrians, the Greeks of the Egyptians, and we of the Romans, whose Pontifax Maximus had his toe kissed under the Empire. The Druids kissed their High Priest’s toe a thousand years B.C. The Mussulmans who, like you, professed to abhor heathenism, kissed the stone of the Caaba—a pagan practice. The priests of Baal kissed their idols.”

Kissing the foot, or the toe, has been required by the popes as a sign of respect since the eighth century. The first to receive the honor was Constantine. It was paid to him by the Emperor Justinian II. on his entry into Constantinople 710. About 827 Valentine I. required every one to kiss his foot, and from that time this mark of reverence has been expected. The Pope wears a slipper with a cross, which is kissed. In recent times Protestants have not been required to perform the ceremony, but to bend the knee slightly. When the excommunicated German emperor, Henry IV., had been humbled by three days of penance, barefoot, and fasting, in the month of January, before the palace of Pope Gregory VII., he was admitted to “the superlative honor” of kissing the pontiff’s toe.

Kissing the feet of princes was a token of subjection which was sometimes carried so far that the print of the foot received the kiss, so as to give the impression that the very dust had become sacred by the royal tread, or that the subject was not worthy to salute even the prince’s foot, but was content to kiss the earth itself near, or on which he trod. The Bible says:

“And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.”—(Isaiah xlix. 23.)

“They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth; they shall be afraid of the Lord our God and shall fear because of thee.”—(Micah, vii. 17.)

Kisses have been the reward of genius, as when Voltaire was publicly kissed in the stage-box by the young and lovely Duchess de Villars, who was ordered by an enthusiastic pit thus to reward the author of “Merope.” In politics they have been used as bribes, as in the famous Eatanswill elections of the “Pickwick Papers,” and also in a still more famous election. For, when Fox was contesting the hard-won seat at Westminster, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire offered to kiss all who voted for the great statesman. And fully as famous, and perhaps in a better cause, was the self-denying patriotism of the beautiful Lady Gordon, who, when the ranks of the Scottish regiments had been sadly thinned by cruel Badajoz and Salamanca, turned recruiting sergeant, and, to tempt the gallant lads, placed the recruiting shilling in her lips, from whence who would might take it with his own.

In England, during the last century, a certain candidate for a Norfolk borough kissed the voters’ wives with guineas in his mouth, for which he was expelled the House. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, gave Steel, the butcher, a kiss for his vote nearly a century since.

There have been bargains for kisses. A French poet speaks of a country girl who required “thirty sheep for one short kiss.” The shepherd thought the bargain a good one, but the next day he was agreeably astonished at being able to get from the same girl thirty kisses for one sheep. And then

The morrow, Phyllis, far more tender, Trembling she would lose the bliss, Was very happy to surrender Thirty sheep for one short kiss.

Strode, a minor English poet of the seventeenth century, writes about how he and his sweetheart played for kisses:

My love and I for kisses played, She would keep stakes, I was content; But when I won she would be paid— This made me ask her what she meant. Nay, since I see (quoth she) you wrangle in vain, Take your own kisses, give me mine again!

Some time ago, a Mr. Finch, who was in the jewelry business in Newbern, sold to a young lady named Miss Waters what was described as a beautiful set of real jet, the bargain being that he was to receive in payment one hundred kisses, to be paid at the rate of one kiss daily. Mr. Finch was to call at the lady’s house every day, Sundays excepted, to receive his daily kiss, which Miss Waters undertook and promised to daily deliver to him. For thirty consecutive days, Sundays excepted, Mr. Finch punctually called upon Miss Waters, and duly received the stipulated salutation. On the thirty-first day, however, Mr. Finch made a formal complaint that Miss Waters was not fulfilling her contract, inasmuch as she insisted upon permitting him to kiss her cheek only. He maintained that this did not constitute a legal kiss, and demanded that he should be permitted to put his left arm around her waist and kiss her in the highest style of art. To this, however, a firm refusal was returned. The lady offered Mr. Finch a choice of cheeks, but insisted that the contract would not bear the construction put upon it. Thereupon Mr. Finch, in great indignation, brought an action for breach of contract against the lady. This action raised several new and interesting questions, among the most important of which was what constituted, in the eye of the law, a kiss. The plaintiff set up the further plea that there was a difference between active and passive kisses; that Miss Waters had promised to give him a certain number of kisses—not merely allow him to take them—and that giving kisses was an act which required the use of the lips. The case was the subject of considerable controversy in the press and elsewhere, but a compromise of some sort was brought about.

An equally remarkable kissing transaction occurred in Austria: In this instance a kiss was actually put up for sale at auction, and publicly bestowed upon the highest bidder. The occasion was a charity _fête_ got up in the little town of Torrantal on behalf of the poor of Agram. The well-meant endeavor of the benevolent ladies and gentlemen who acted as salesmen and stall-holders to induce visitors to purchase trifles exposed for sale at twenty times their value had not succeeded. Business was not brisk. The public who had filled the sale were not in a generous mood, and the organizers of the _fête_ were disheartened. At this juncture, one of the lady patronesses, a remarkably beautiful woman, had what she thought a happy inspiration. She took her husband aside, conferred with him for a few minutes, and shortly after, with his consent, offered a kiss to the highest bidder, the sum paid for the favor to be added to the receipts of the _fête_. Very low sums were at first offered by the young men—for, of course, the feminine portion of the visitors were not tempted by the opportunity—and ultimately the kiss was knocked down at the relatively paltry figure of fifteen florins and eleven kreutzers. The husband of the lady, seeing the slight store set by the favor, offered to pay the amount himself and take the kiss; but the claimant had already handed over the money, and as he refused to agree to the bargain being canceled, the kiss was exchanged before the assembled company.

It is said that a California girl disposed of her kisses at two cents apiece. One week her receipts were $11.25. At regular rates she should have had $11.75, but she sold one job lot of twelve dozen at $2.50, which accounted for the difference. One devoted admirer made a special contract. In consideration of his doing all his kissing with her, he was charged much less than the regular schedule rates. This traffic went on for some months without the knowledge of any persons except those immediately concerned.

There is a story to the effect that when Booth was traveling on the Boston & Albany Road one day, having just closed an engagement in the New England metropolis, he heard an expensively-dressed, handsome, middle-aged woman back of him sigh and say to her companion: “I would give fifty dollars to kiss that man!” Booth turned suddenly and looked at the speaker. “Do you mean that?” he demanded, fixing his fine, dark eyes upon her, and causing the blood to mount up to the very roots of her hair. “Why, yes, of course I do!” replied the woman, confusedly, looking in a helpless sort of way at the great tragedian and at the smiling passengers. “Well, I accept the terms, madam!” exclaimed Booth, solemnly. “And I stand by my proposition,” said the woman, recovering her self-possession, and, rising, she imprinted a sound kiss upon the actor’s lips. Booth’s face did not betray the slightest emotion. He received the kiss stolidly, and did not return it, but waited until the impetuous woman found her purse and handed him a fifty-dollar bill. He took the money, thanked her, and turning to a feeble, shabbily-dressed woman on the other side of the aisle, who was traveling with two young children, placed the money in her hands, and, with a courtly bow, said: “This is for the children, madam! Take it, please,” and, without another word, he left the car.

VII.

EXCUSES FOR KISSING; HOW ALL NATURE JUSTIFIES THE PRACTICE— THE CHILDISH AND THE HUMOROUS EXCUSE—KISSING CASUISTRY— THE GLUTTONY OF KISSING; UNACCOUNTABLE OSCULATORY DEMANDS—EXCUSES FOR NOT KISSING—KISSING EXPERIENCES— DOMINIE BROWN’S FIRST KISS—THE KISS OF THE SPANISH GIRL, THE NURSE, THE MOTHER—A CURIOUS GERMAN CUSTOM.

It must be remembered that the only animal that knows how to kiss is man. Dogs lick their masters and bears their ragged cubs; cats their kittens, while donkeys and the Esquimaux rub their noses; cows and horses fondle each others’ necks and heads; love-birds, pigeons, and other birds, nestle together and have methods of their own of showing affection peculiar to each; but none of these creatures kiss. Even low-class savages do not kiss like other men; so that we may take this habit to be an evidence of intellect and civilization.

Various excuses have been made for kissing. Shelley draws his excuses from Dame Nature herself:

See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea; What are all these kissings worth If thou kiss not me?

A poet of later days has carried out the same conceit in very happy fashion:

The lilies kiss the waves they love, The ripples kiss the flowers; The swallows sweep from heaven above, To kiss this world of ours; The foaming billows kiss the beach, In wild, ungentle fashion; The weeping willows earthward reach T’ enjoy the darling passion; The ivy kisses from its birth, All other things dismissing; And all things loveliest on earth Seem most engaged in kissing. As this by all is seen and heard And known to be most true, love, ’Twere quite unnatural and absurd That I should not kiss you, love.

There is a poem about a father lying beside his little child, Daisy, as she is being put to bed, and asking the foolish question that wife and lover ask over and over again:

There, close at her side, “Do you love me?” I cried; She lifted her golden-crowned head, A puzzled surprise Shone in her gray eyes— “Why, that’s why I kiss you,” she said.

A humorous excuse was that given by the defendant in a case of breach of promise. The defendant was allowed to say a word in his own behalf. “Yes,” he said, “I kissed her almost continually every evening I called at her house.” Lawyer for plaintiff: “Then you confess it?” Defendant: “Yes, I do confess it, but I had to do it.” Lawyer: “You had to do it! What do you mean?” Defendant: “That was the only way I could keep her from singing.”

The casuistry of kissing has been set forth in these lines:

When Sarah Jane, the moral Miss, Declares ’tis very wrong to kiss, I’ll bet a shilling I see through it! The damsel, fairly understood, Feels just as any Christian should, She’d rather _suffer_ wrong than _do_ it.