Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-09-25
KISSING
BV DIR. Frank Crane

tn HERE are all sorts and degrees of
kisses from the lfe-giying kiss OF
Cupid and Psyche to the death-sealing
kiss of Judas. But of all kisses the kiss of
a man and woman, equally smitten with
the dangerous disease of love, is the ideal:
which to my knowledge has been nowhere
indicated in words more artfully than in
Tennyson's Fatima
80 love! fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew
1t is the soul rising to the lips that makes
a kiss full sacrament; that is an outward
act expressing a spiritual reality.
The mouth is the exit portal of thought,
the lips coin these sounds that embody the
creations of the brain, it is but natural
that the meeting of lips is the perfect SYM
boil of unity. To lovers all the words pos
sible to be said melt into the mute substance
of kiss.
To one who feels this the custom of in
discriminate kissing is not agreeable. Nor"
says Montaigne (Florios translation), do
we men gain much by it; for the world is
divided into four parts so for four faiEe
ones we must kiss five foule; and to nice
and tender stomach, as are those Of mine
age, one i'll kisse doth surpay one good"
1t would be interesting to find a complete
mating classification of the various species
and geni of kisses, all by some learned au-
thor who might be old enough not to be
suspected and still young enough to know
what he was talking about.
For a kiss has as many meanings and con-
nections as a word, and each kiss has it's
accent and pronunciation, so to speak. If
the performance is hurried, a mere brushin &
of the lips, it says something quite different
from that touch where there is little loath-
ing to part
There are races, as the Japanese, where
kissing is not the custom and certain negro
tribes rub noses in sign Of amity; and there
are rational nuisances who would like to set
back our civilization to this mark; but | can
conceive of no tyranny more odious than
that of physicians; by all means let us live
antiseptcally but | hope never to the
day when our fear of microbes will be
stronger than our courage to kiss the lips
that ask.
There is the paterna1 kiss, upon the fore
head; and the French family-kiss on one
cheek and then the other; the courtly
kiss upon the hand; and the farewell kiss
blown from the fnger-tps the kiss upon
the Bible in oath-taking; and the kiss upon
the dust of the ground, among slaves, but all
these are but pretty suburbs around the
main citadel, which is the kiss of love.
There are infdels and scoffers in the court
of kissing; Pooh and Pah, Bosh and Oof, are
stubborn Voltaires Tom Paines, and 1nger-
soils who have their following; there are Pu-
ritans who regard OSCILLATION as a form OF
sim and prudes who look upon it, or at least
look upon mentioning it, as somewhat in
decent;t but the great commonalty of the
human family consider kissing to be one OF
the most interesting exercises as fascinating
as it is dangerous, one of those little acts
that hang like a scarlet flower right on the
edge Of the cliff between the Elysian Fields
and the Bottomless Pit; everybody likes KISS
ing except the usual protesting minority, and
even they like to talk about it.
Copyright 1924