Newport weekly independent., 1902-08-01
ORIGIN OF THE KISS.
An Opal 'Twixt Two Ruby Lips Lured
 on Lover.

Who invented kissing! True there is no very widespread curiosity as to this question. Kissing is usual ly accepted as an agreeable fact, and its theory and history are ignored. But somebody who has been investl- gating Greek lore has decided that if kissing did not begin with Adam and Eve it undoubtedly began with the Greeks, says Helen Pitkln, ln the New Orleans Times-Democrat.
 The story goes that a beautiful young shepherdess found an opal on one of the hills of Greece, and wish ing to give it to young shepherd, whose hands were busy with his flock, let him take it from her lips with his own. Thus the kiss was in- vented, and perhaps the popular su- perstition against the opal may be traced back to the same incident, for osculation has been fraught with great moment in the worlds history.
 Kissing was an act of religion in ancient Rome. The nearest friend of dying person performed the rite of receiving his soul by kiss, supposing that it escaped through his Ii ps at the moment of expiration. Later, in Rome, near relatives were allowed to kiss their female kindred on the mouth, but this was done in order to know whether they smelt of wine, because the Roman ladies, in spite of the prohibition, were sometimes found to have made too free with the juice of the grape.
 It is said that kissing was first in- troduced into England by royalty. The British monarch, Vortigern, gave banquet in honor of his Scan- dinavian allies, at which Rowcna, the beautiful daughter of Hengist, was present. During the proceed ings the princess, after pressing a brimming beaker to her lips, saluted the astonished and delighted mon- arch with little kiss, "after the man. ner of her people,"
 The most honorable royal kiss on record is that which Queen Margaret of France, in the presence of the whole court, one day imprinted on the lips of the ugHest man in the kingdom, Alain Chartier, whom she found asleep. To those around her she said: "I do not kiss the man, but the mouth that has uttered so many charming things"
 Among the serious kisses may be mentioned those of Antony and Cleo patra and of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. Both of these, it is said shook an empire and destroyed re- ligion.
 Charlemagne once caught his sec. retary kissing the emperor's daugh. ter at midnight. The lady, that he1 lovers footsteps might not be traced in the snow, carried him home or her back. The emperor heard of it and made her take the secretary fol the rest of her life, which she was not at all unwilling to do.
 | When Cardinal John of Lorraine was presented to the duchess o1 Savoy she gave him her hand to kiss greatly to the indignation of the irate churchman. "How, madam, exclaimed he; "am l to be treated in this manner? l kiss the queen my mistress, who is the greatest queen in the whole world, and shal l not kiss you, dirty little duchess: I would have you know l kissed as handsome ladies and of as great o1 greater family than yours" With. out more ado, he made for the lips of the naughty Portuguese princess and, despite her resistance, kissed her three times on the mouth before he released her, with an exuItant laugh.
 But in some quarters of the globt the practice is not favored, if, indeed it is known. New Zealanders, Ia | hitians. PanuanS. and Esnuinau1