SWEET KISSES.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 148, 25 June 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

SWEET KISSES.

Poetic anfi Practical Ideas About

Osculation.

"I thi*n tk," said a clever society lady, " that the kisses which one woman bestows on another at meeting or parting are the most insipid, cold, comfortless, stupid, nonsensical, forced, frozen, false and foolish kisses imaginable. That is, when they are not between, relatives. It's an abuse of the lips." " A waste of sweets," suggested the scribe. •-. "Not sweets—oftentimes anything but that—but a waste of patience, and a demand on courtesy that is excessively trying," and with this explosion of momentary wrath, which lady readers have tall occasionally felt, the lady settled herself, in an easy chair and listened to a few remarks on kissing and the art thereotf. Sam Slick said a kiss was like creation : it was made out of nothing, and was yory good. That applies to kisses thatare kisses -not to ,kissiiigs between women or betAveen men. Among our English ancestors it was customary for msn to kiss each other,'but the vile habit was finally turned over entirely to pur French and German friends. Great bearded men among theiMi kiss each other, and it is not pleasant 'to see. Nor does Mr Slick's definition apply to those kisses of ceremony or state symbol where the subject kisses the hand or fche foot of his sovereign or the ground before him: as has been customary in one ago or another of the world. When Gladstone surrendered the seals of oiliee tlie oi;her clay, and Salisbury received them, they both knelt down and kissed the Queen's hand. The Roman emperors demanded to be kissed on the feet, and later to have the ground before them kissed. \ There have also been religions kisses, duly enjoined in the writings of tbo Apostles. The Bible has many tender and some terrible passages concerning kissing, the extremes of which arc those of Mary Magdalen, so full of love and pathos/kissing the feet of the Saviour, and that of Judas betraying him. • But these are not the kisses one thinks of when the word is spoken, but rather of the kind Sydney Smith speaks of : " We are in favour 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. She should be csaeful not to slobber a kiss, but to give it as a humming-bird runs his bill into a honeysuckle—deep but delicate. We have the memory of one received in our youth which ] lasted us forty years, and. we believe it will J be one of the last things we shall think of \ when we die. ' So for the witty divine, and 1 tliere are a good many of us who have I similar recollections. f To kiss one's sister is not particularly | unpleasant, but it is only a bread-and-butter aii'air. Good, but not sweot. To kiss one's cousin is somewhat different, find gives a jam taste to the operation, particularly if she comes under the denomination dangerous. But to kiss somebody else's sister or cousin, that surpasses the other as far as ice cream and cake surpass: bread; and jam. Eclipse first and the rest nowhere. Sterne called it " flesh and.' blood with an angel on the inside." Shakespeare has many epithets for kisses and innumerable allusions to them, but he nowhere uudortakes to give a full description of a kiss. Possibly even he could not do the subject justice. In the " Midsummer Night's Dream " he calls lips " those kissing treasures." Titania '' kisses the fair, large ears of her gentle joy,": and seems to take much pleasure in ib; while further on come the quaint kissings of Pyrauus and Thisbe through the chinks of Tinker Snout's fingers. There is the kiss of Petruchio : Ho took the bride about tlie neck And kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack . . . : That, ai the parting, all tho church did echo. Then,there is Romeo's kiss in the vault>, so tender and sad, and Othello's farewell j kisses that almost did persuade Justice t» break her sword, and Antonio's dyingkiss :'.-., . i •■•.. Of so many thousand kisses, the poor last ". ■~[ I lay upon thy lips. And the grand kiss of Coriolanus : • j-; Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge. And Bassanio and Portia's kiss, full of such wealth of loyalty and love. . ■ Byron's wish That womanhood had but ono rosy mouth, To kiss them all at once from North to South, does not particularly commend itself to the connoisseur in kissing. It is rather too vast a concent/ration. One at a time would be more practical and more pleasant. Leigli Hunt says: Stolen, sweets are always sweeter, Stolen kisses much complete!l. \ But there is room for argument on that proposition. For real enjoyment it is a trifle too humid,but it may bo classed under the same head as kissing your cousin. Of such kisses one must never kiss and tell. Sweet and lovely is; the maiden's kiss in "Paradise and the Peri," "the last long kiss which she expires in giving." Tom Moor wrote some most excellent verses on the kiss. One of the most famous kisses in history is that of Georgiana,Duchess of Devonshire, when she was canvassing for Fox's election. A butcher said he would vote for Fox if the lady would kiss him, which she thereupon did, thereby making the kiss, the butcher and herself immortal in history. The Duchess of Gordon, in Scotland, recruited a Highland regiment in the same why. Gilbert Stuart, the great painter, was once met by a lady on the streets of Boston who: said to him that she had just seen his likeness; and kissed it because it was so much like him. :: " And did it kiss you in return ?" ' "Why, no." ;':,".:■ ."Then it1 was not like me," replied the gallant painter. . . ; _ ; ; . " Tom Hood once wondered in his " Oddities" if Hannah More, that prim''and respectable lady we all remember, was ever kissed by a man! Probably not, but the humorists of " The' Rejected Addresses," in one of their famous verses, say : Sydney Morgan -was playing the organ, While behind the vestry door '-, ! Horace Twiss was snatching a kiss "> ' j From the lips of Hannah More. : i But the testimony is not fairly credible^ and we must conclude that she went, to her grave unkissed. ; Our Puritan forefathers were not at all in favour-of kissing. It was not permitted to young people, and even a man could not kiss his wife on Sunday. Winwood Reade, in his book of travel in equatorial Africa, says the negroes do hot know how to kiss, and he admits that he frightened one or two maidens by attempting it. In New Zealand lovers do not kiss, but simply touch noses, but the South Sea Islanders imderstand kissing to perfection, according to some voyagers. They may have learned it at. an early day from the first voyagei's,: and, finding that, it was good, kept up the custom. ■ r,fi.(;d v ' ■ :' '■ • P ■ In the Dictionary of Osculation, which has never yet been completed, are found some definitions: ■ ; Buss—A'kiss;' ' ■ ■.■.'■;, Rebus-To kiss again. ••:■', , - Pmribus-To kiss all round. • Syllabus-To kiss the hand instead of the lips. Blunderbuss—To kiss the wrong person, sometimes unexpectedly pleasant. , Obnibus—To kiss promiscuously, >. ... Erebus—To kiss in the dark. Incubus—To kiss someone you don't like; ' Harquebus—To kiss with a loud- smack; Petruchio's was a hark! we buss.. ... Kissing plays and kissing dances were greatly in • vogue some , years , since ; arid doubtless the:young;people.?of to-day are!

not awhit behind their fathers and mothers in the romping plays of King William, Copenhagen and Poor Sinner.,. * i What fool would dance .> ,' If that, when dance is done, He may not have at lady's lips ' j, • That which in dance he won ? "-» Henry VIII. says to Anne Boleyn: \ ti I " , Sweetheart, I were unmannerly to take you out And not to kiss you. i To kiss a lady against her will is an 'assault, punishable under our law by ■■ fine and impi'isonment. So gallants must have a care now they yield to rosy temptation. Rare Ben Jonson, who said He was wishing He might die a kissing, ; wrote also the immortal lines to Celia : Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine ; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine. ■■.-■<. And Dodsley's verse is almost as familiar : One kind kiss before we part, Drop a tear and bid adieu; Though we sever, .my fond heart Till we meet shall pant for you.