The Portland daily press., 1881-01-03
The Abbott Kiss.
views On Missing from Emma Abbott
From MIN crinkle's Feuille eton.


From MIN Crinkle's Feuill eton.l
The Western reporters have gone recklessly
into the psychology of the abbott kiss"
| There is something about it, if we are to be-
lieve these mad wags, that stimulates investi-
CATION. One of them declares that it has
breadth but no depth, and another has de-
| tected & sectarian flavor in it. Still another,
| whose investigations have evidently been in
| the line of wardrobe, insists that it is "eut
bias" The two cities of Chicago and st.
! Louis having got into an inextricable wrangle
I of this delicate psychological question, there
| was nothing to do but interview the lady her.
| self on the subject, and a st. Louis reporter,
| to use his own words, tackled her in her
boudoir''
As everything that Miss Abbott says is
fraught with fine inner sense of Abbott and
art, and as stage kissing is phase of dramatic
work which may be said to be unexploited,
this interview has peculiar interest b..
We can only call the attention to the mar
velous ingenuousness of the lady and the naive
frankness with which she disclosed the real
secret of the abbott kiss which, of course,
is earnestDess. The reporter tells his story in
the following direct manner;
Il want to know about the art of OSCILLATION
| or the osculation of art, Miss Abbott" said the
| reporter, feeling that it was possible to have
worse subject of conversation than kissing and
kisses between young lady and an inexperi-
enced and guileless young man who was de-
voting his life to the acquisition of wisdom
"Well-but-now-you know" blushed the
scribe, everybody has more or less to say
about the abbott kiss and so, entirely ia the
pursuit of information, I must know some-
thing about it," aa9t
What can tell you that you do not know
about kissing? Every one who has mouth
can kiss. Remember. there are kisses and
kisses, and you can believe me when tell Won
that stage kiss is a cold, dim, pale phantom
unsatisfactory, elusive and empty compared
to the kiss of love. I know what both are.
Do you?' .f
"Well, 1 think L can guess at some of the
conditions of the latter kiss" admitted the re-
porter. II have some vague, general views
about it. which have never been crystallized
| into practice. If it could be illustrated now?''
"But it can't, you know.'sr5H. iar-e. 81
"On your part, perhaps, but on mine" the
reporter would have made well-rounded and
effective remark if Miss Abbott had not al
this point touehingly asked him il he would
eat an apple. 3.
The topic was spoiled 10 amount of inter
viewing could evolve Miss Abbott's views on
the kiss. All that she could be got to admit
was that the balcony scene in Romeo and Ju-
liet was copied from painting of Antony and
Cleopatra which she had seen at Milan
People talk about 'the Abbott kiss,
said she, altogether forgetting that ii
If sthe scene is not made realistic il
would be utterly fiat. stale and improbable
/ will not sing roles like Traviata, OF which
do not approve, but those which do act I will
act with my whole heart and my whole soul
with all the art which God has given me. /
have never sung yet that I was not accused O
being in love with the tenor, just because
sing and act in dead earnest. This is what re
alism in art MEANS ~
SO much for the positive kiss. The students
OF comparative kissing, who will, of course,
look over the whole field in historic way, will
have to take into consideration the various
schools of osculation. There was the Platoni,
kiss of kellogg, who used to fling them like
icicles with her fingar-tips, and as Sher Camp
bell once said, there were chilblains in them
| Then there was tho Presbyterian kiss of Ads
Dyas, who used to plant it on Montague's lef
ear, or on the back of his neck, and Away
| created an impression in the gallery that she
had bit him; and the Lolita bubble which al
ways sounded like the pulling of a cork, ant
seemed to be a number of linked kisses effer
vescing; and the Corinthian kiss of Vain
wright severe affair, somewhat motherly
and when dropped upon q stock actor, always
frightened him little bit II he had pulled
a New Testament out of his pocket instead Of
pack of cards; and the Carey kiss-ah! Th
romantic Carey kiss, that never began any
where and never ended-that ran down tn
back and tingled in the arms and legs, anl
! made the hair stands on end, and was accom-
panied with laughter, whose echoes were un
dying; and the cavernons Soldene kiss, tina
opened its ponderous and marble jaws, with
report like the bursting of an india-rubber bal
loon. ane ID r5-rfeT -re-9ges-s
Who shall formulate all these schools for us
Certainly not Abbot; for hers is the spiritua
kiss, and we are not educated up to it,.