St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-09-23
SMsOKS ON THE MOUTH
Various Kinds of Kisses as Considered By
Different People.
Historical Touches of the Lips By
Which Victories Were Won.
Definitions From an Unpublished Dr.
rectory of Oscillation.

|
other at meeting or parting are the mos
insipid. cold, cOmfortless stupid. NONSENSE
cal, forced frozen. false and foolish kiSSe:
imaginable. That is. when they are moi
between relatives. It's an abuse of the
lips"
"A waste of sweets" suggested the
scribe.
Not sweets, oftentimes anything but
that, but waste of patience. and de-
mand on courtesey that is excessively try
ing" and with this explosion of momentary
wrath, which lady readers have all occa-
siOnally felt the lady settled herself in an
easy chair and listened to the scribe. while
he took occasion to make few remarks on
kissing and the art thereof.
Sam Slick said kiss was like creation;
it was made out of nothing and was very
good That applies to kisses that are kisses,
not to kissing between women or between
men. Among our English ancestors it was
customary for men to kiss each other but
the vile habit was turned over entirely
to our French and German friends. Great
bearded men among them kiss each other,
and it is not pleasant to see. Nor does Mr..
Sticks definition apply to those kisses of
ceremony or state symbol, where the sub
ject kisses the hand or the foot of his SOW
ereign or the ground before him. as has
been customary in one age or another of
the world. When Gladstone surrendered
the seals of Office the other day, and Sails
bury received them. they both knelt down
| and kissed the queens hand. The Roman
emperorS demanded to be kissed on the
feet, and later to have the ground before
them kissed.
There have always been religious kisses.
duly enjoined in the writings of the Apos-
ties. The Bible has many tender, and
some terrible passages concerning kissing.
the extremes of which are that of Mary
MagdaIen, so full of love and pathos kiss
ing the feet of the Savior, 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: I'VE are in
| favor of certain amount of shyneSs when
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. If she close her
eyes and sigh Immediately after it, the
| effect is greater. She should be careful not
to slobber kiss, but to give it as a hum
ming bird runs his bill into honeysuckle-
deep, but delicate. We have the memory
| VI Ol0 I6CtIN6u III OuI NOujll WlllCn lcOlCo
US forty years, and we believe it will be one
of the last things we shall think of when
we die" So far the witty divine, and there
are good many of us who have similar
recollectiOns.
To kiss ones sister is not particularly I'M
pleasant, but it is only bread and butter
affair. Good. but not sweet. To kiss ones
cousin is somewhat different and gives a
! jam taste to the operation. particularly if
! she comes under the denomination, danger
! ous 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 illusions to them, but he
nowhere undertakes to give a full descrip-
ton of kiss. Possibly even he could not
do the subject justice. In the midsummer
| Nights Dream" he calls lips ''those kiss
| ing treasures" Titania kisses the fair,
large ears of her gentle JOY" and seems to
! take much pleasure in it, while further on
come the quaint kissings of Pyramus and
| Thisbe through the chinks of Tinker
SHOUTS fingers. There is the kiss of Pc
| truchio:
he TOOK the DrlQ0 ABOUT tue neck
And kissed her lips with such clamorous
smack,
That, at the parting, all the church did echo.
Then there is Romeo's kiss in the vault,
tender and sad, and Othello's farewell
kisses that almost did persuade Justice
| to break her sword, and Anthony's dying
kiss:
Of so many dying kisses, the poor last,
1 lay upon thy lips.
And the grand kiss of Coriolanus:
| Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge"
And Bassino and Portals kiss, full Of
such wealth of loyalty and love.
Byron's wish
That womanhood had but one rosy mouth,
To kiss them all at once from north to
south
| Does not particularly commend itself to the
connoisseur in kissing. 1t is rather too vast
| a concentration. One at time would be
more practical and more pleasant. Leigh
| Hunt says:
Stolen sweets are always sweeter,
Stolen kisses much completer,
But there is room for argument on that
proposition. For real enjoyment it is trifle
too humid, but it may be 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 Moore wrote some
most excellent verses on the kiss.
One of the most famous kisses in history
| is that of Georgiana, Duchess of Devon
shire, 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 Scot
land, recruited Highland regiment in the
same way.
Gilbert Stuart, the great painter, was
once met by a lady on the streets of Bos-
ton, who said to him that she had Just seen
his likeness and had kissed it, because it
was so much like him.
''And did it kiss you in return?"
"Why, no."
''Then it was not like me-" replied the
gallant painter.
Tom Hood once wondered in his "Oddi-
tieS' if Hannah More. that prim and very
respectable maiden we all remember, was
ever kissed by a man. Probably not, but
the humoriStS of 1.-The Rejected Addresses, !"
in one of their famous verses, say:
Sidney Morgan was playing the organ,
While behind the vestry door
Horace Twiss was snatching kiss
From the lips of Hannah More,
But the testimony is not fairly credible, and
we must fain conclude that she went to her
grave unkissed
Our Puritan forefathers were not at all in
| favor of kissing. 1t was not permitted to
young people, and even man could not
kiss his wife on Sunday. Winwood Reade,
in his book of travels in Equatorial Africa,
says the negroes do not know how to kiss,
and he admits that he frightened one or
two madens by attempting it, In New
Zealand lovers do not kiss, but simply
| touch noses, but the South Sea Islanders
understand kissing to perfection. according
to some voyagers. They may have learned