The Wilmingtonian., 1885-03-07
ESPECIALLY FOR THE LADIES.
About kissing.


l have often wondered who invented
kissing-it is such an inexplicably funny
proceeding to the sober and unnterested oh
server. like to kiss as well as the next
fellow, but aOhy l like it is another question.
What is there in it? What makes people
do lt2 What, above all, prompted the first
fellow who did it to press bis lips to pair
of the same article? OF course, he told
his friend and chum, and they tried it, and
soon it got to be a universal custom, though
never heard of Indians doing it. Who was
that first fellow? 1t was not Adam, at
least don't thiuk so.
There are lips many man would give
several farms to kiss, if he had them, and
there are others !, fer my part, would not
kiss if was to be made doorkeeper of the
fresh, red, rosy, ripe, swelling beautiful
lips, which can only with difficulty keep
together, SO prone are they to part in lovely
smile, and SO dearly do they long to display
the white, even teeth behind them. The
others are shriveled up, dry, bloodess
pinched, faded things, which cling together
like two rubber-bands, never parting to
smile unless they cannot help it, because
somebody has just fired off a delirious bit
of scandal about neighbor; then they Just
broaden little. but take care not to show
what is behind them. unless it comes right
fresh from the dentists Office.
There are soft and hard, curved and
straight, moustached and hairless lips, and
they, probably, have all been, OF will be
kissed at least once during the owners
life. Why don't people rub their noses
together as token of affection, like they do
in the EastP "Ah, there's the rub" Peo-
pie in the East al have beautiful Grecan
noses but you could not expect proud
American nose or Roman nose, to exper-
ience particular pleasure in rubbing against
aninsigniicant little stub-nose or rice eersa.
There must be something especially graft
flying in kiss. remember once to have
kissed somebody, never mind whom, if You
can't guess, (she lived ON the second floor,
and it was on the landing) and to this day l
can't tell how got down the stairs out ON
the street and home, so intoxicated was ]
with the delight of that one kiss; and what
makes it more binding, that was long before
bulldogs and No. 13 boots were invented,
and besides l had sworn offtw days before
the event.
There are different kinds of kisses, Beech
er's paroxysmal kisses, Judas kisses, women's
kisses, friendship kisses, dirty kisses, (the
latter especially prevalent in France, where
everybody kisses everybody on every pos
sible occasion. should like to be on duty
in French family where there are nine or
eleven good-looking daughters,) and there
are Hotchkiss, and many other kinds. The
latter often go off unexpectedly.
Aged relatives often come around to see
fellow, and offer to kiss him just for luck
and he has to submit as gracefully as he
can without letting his mind run loose on
croton oil, or other agreeable drinks
There are your best-girl kisses, reminding
you Of the Fourth of July and fire-crackers,
and I've been told that the sweetest kisses
are those that young wife gives to her
"dovie" if she wants him to get her that
new love of bonnet.
Bat all this does not solve the question
The mystery lies in the circumstance that
the meeting of lips should cause people more
pleasure than the meeting of their noses, or
their foreheads, or their backs, or their
little toes. don't know that anybody has
ever tried these experiments and instituted
comparisons, but it might be worth trail.
What is kiss anyhow? Two pairs of lips
meet, and separate with noise as if II mule
was being rescued by electricity out of a
swampy hole about two blocks farther down
the alley. This is actually ALL And. still
everybody does il, and raves about it and
writes poetry concerning it, and gets yank.
ed to the calaboose for it, because the facto.
ry girl going home from work at G D. M,
has more enlightened notions of enjoyment.
OSCAR LATING.