What glorious times, Oliver, the old Turks must have, sitting, on a
sultry day like this, listening to the cool plashing of their fountains,
and smoking their chiboques—egad!—until they fall asleep, and dream of
dark-eyed Houris smiling on them, amid the fragrant groves and by the
cool rivers of a Musselman Paradise. What a pity we were not born in
Turkey, you a Bashaw of three tails, and I the Sultaun of Stamboul! How
we would have stroked our beards—and smoked our pipes—and given praise
to the prophet as we drank our sherbert, spiced, you know, with a _very_
little of the _aqua vitæ_, that comfort of comforts to the inner man! We
could then have dressed like gentlemen, and not gone about, as we do
now, breeched, coated, and swaddled in broadcloth, like a couple of
Egyptian mummies. Just imagine yourself in a dashing Turkish dress, with
a turban on your head, and a scimitar all studded with diamonds at your
side, with which—the scimitar I mean—you are wont to slice off the
heads of infidels as I slice off the top of this pyramid of
ice-cream—help yourself, for it’s delicious! I think I see us now,
charging at the head of our spahis against the rascally Russians,
driving their half starved soldier slaves like chaff before a
whirl-wind, and carrying our horse-tails and shouting “Il Allah!” into
the very tents of their chieftains. What magnificent fellows we would
have made! Ah!—my dear boy—you and I are out of our element. Take my
word for it, a Turk is your finest gentleman, your true philosopher, the
only man that understands how to live. He keeps better horses, wears
richer clothes, walks with a nobler mien, smokes more luxuriously,
drinks more seductive coffee, and kisses his wife or ladye-love with
better grace, than any man or set of men, except you and I, “under the
broad canopy of heaven” as the town-meeting orators have it. And let me
tell you this last accomplishment—this kissing gracefully, “_secundum
artem_”—is a point of education most impiously neglected amongst us.
Kissing is a science by itself. Let us draw up to the window where we
can drink in the perfume of the garden, and while you whiff away at your
meerschaum, I will prove the truth of my assertion. One has a knack for
talking after dinner—I suppose it is because good steaks and madeira
lubricate the tongue.
We are born to kiss and be kissed. It comes natural to us, as marriage
does to a woman. Why, sir, I can remember kissing the female babies when
I was yet in my cradle, and my friend Sir Thomas Lawrence did himself
the honor to paint me at my favorite pursuit, as you know by that
exquisite picture in my library. The very first day I went to school I
kissed all the sweet little angels there. I wasn’t fairly out of my
alphabet, when I used to wait behind a pump, for my sweetheart to come
out of school, and as soon as I saw her I made a point of kissing her
just to see how prettily she blushed. As I grew older I loved to steal
in, some summer evening, on her, and kiss her asleep on the sofa—or, if
she was awake, and the old folks were by, I’d wait till they both got
nodding, and then kiss her all the sweeter for the slyness of the thing.
Ah! such stolen draughts are delicious. I wouldn’t give a sous to kiss a
girl in company, and I always hated Copenhagen, Pawns, and your other
kissing plays, as I hope I hate the devil. They had a shocking custom
when I was young, that everybody at a wedding should kiss the bride,
just as they all drank, in the same free and easy way, out of the one
big china punch-bowl; but the practice always hurt my sensibilities, and
I avoided weddings as I would avoid a ghost, a bailiff, or any other
fright. No—no—get your little charmer up into a corner by
yourselves—watch when everybody’s back is turned—then slip your arm
around her waist, and kiss her with a long sweet kiss, as if you were a
bee sucking honey from a flower. Nor can one kiss every girl. I’d as
lief take ipecacuanha as kiss some of your sharp-chinned,
icicle-mouthed, lignum-vitæ-faced spinsters—why one couldn’t get the
taste of the bitters out of his mouth for a week! I go in for your rosy,
pouting lips, that seem to challenge everybody so saucily—egad! when we
kiss such at our leisure, we think we’re in a seventh heaven. I once
lived on such a kiss for forty-eight hours, for it took the taste for
commoner food out of my mouth “intirely,” as poor Power used to say. Oh!
how I loved the wide, dark entries one finds in old mansions, where one
could catch these saucy little fairies, and, before they were well aware
of your presence, kiss them so deliciously. There’s kissing for you! Or,
to go upon a sleigh ride, and when all, save you and your partner, are
busy chatting—while the merry ringing of the bells and the whizzing
motion of the vehicle cause your spirits to dance for very joy—to make
believe that you wish to arrange the buffalo, or pull her shawl up
closer around her, and then slyly stealing your face into her bonnet to
kiss her for an instant of ecstasy, while she blushes to the very
temples, lest others may catch you at your sport. And then, on a summer
eve, to row out upon the bosom of a moonlit lake, and while one of the
ladies sings and all the rest listen, to snatch a chance and laughingly
kiss the pretty girl at your side, all unnoticed except by her. Or to
sit beside a charmer on a sofa, before a cozy fire on a bitter winter
night, and fill up the pauses of the conversation, you know, by drawing
her to you and kissing her. But more than all,—when you have won a
blushing confession of love from her you have long and tremblingly
worshipped with all a boy’s devotion,—is the rapture of the kiss which
you press holily to her brow, while her warm heart flutters against your
side, and every pulse in your body thrills with an ecstasy that has no
rival in after life. Ah! sir, that kiss is The Kiss. It is worth all the
rest.
Next to being born a Turk I should choose to have been born an
Englishman in the days of Harry the Eighth. Do you remember how Erasmus
tells us, in one of his letters, that all the pretty women in London ran
up to him and kissed him whenever they met? That’s what I call being in
clover. I don’t wonder people long for the good old times, for, if all
their fashions were like this, commend me to the days of the bluff
monarch, when
“thus paused on the time,
With jolly ways in those brave old days,
When the world was in its prime.”
Did you ever attend a children’s party, and see the little dears play
Copenhagen? The boys seem to have an instinctive knack at kissing their
partners, who always show the same modest repugnance—for modesty is
inborn in every woman—aye! and flings a glory about her like the halo
around a Madonna’s head. The very instant one of the young scapegraces
gets into the ring, he looks slyly all around it, and there be sure is
one little face that blushes scarlet, and one little heart that beats
faster, for well the owner knows that she is in peril. How fast her
hands slide to and fro along the rope, and directly the imprisoned
youngster makes a dash at her hand, and, missing it, turns away amid the
uproarious laughter and clapping of hands of the rest, and essays
perchance a feint to tap some other little hand, all the while, however,
keeping one corner of his eye fixed on the blushing damsel who has
foiled him. And lo! all at once—like an eagle shooting from the
skies—he darts upon it. And now begins the struggle. What a
shouting—and merry laughing—what cries of encouragement from the
lookers on—what a diving under the rope, and over the rope, and among
the chairs, mingled with whoopings from the boys, ensues, until the
victim has escaped, or else been caught by her pursuer. Sometimes she
submits quietly to the forfeit, but at other times she will fight like a
young tiger. Then, indeed, comes “the tug of war.” If she covers her
face in her hands, and is a sturdy little piece beside, young Master
Harry will have to give up the game, and be the laughing stock of the
boys, or else set all chivalry at defiance and tear away those pretty
hands by force. Many a time, you old curmudgeon, have I laughed until
the tears ran out of my eyes to see a young scoundrel, scarcely
breeched, kissing an unwilling favorite. How sturdily he sticks up to
her, one hand around her neck, and the other, perhaps, fast hold of her
chin; while she, with face averted, and a frown upon her tiny brow, is
all the while pushing him desperately away. But the young rascal knows
that he is the strongest, and with him might makes right. With eagerness
in every line of his face, he slips his arm around her waist, and, after
sundry repulses, wins the kiss at last. And then what a mighty gentleman
he thinks he is! In just such a scene has my old friend Lawrence taken
me off, in that picture, of The Proffered Kiss, in my library, egad!
It is a great grief to me that so few understand how to kiss gracefully.
Kissing is an accomplishment, I may be allowed to remark, that should
form a part of every gentleman’s education. A man that is too bashful to
kiss a lady when all is agreeable, as Mrs. Malaprop would say, is a poor
good-for-nought, a lost sinner, without hope of mercy! He will never
have the courage to pop the question—mark my words—and will remain a
bachelor to his dying day, unless some lady kindly takes him in hand and
asks him to have her, as my friend Mrs. Desperate did. The women have a
sly way of doing these things, even if, like a spinster I once knew,
they have to ask a man flatly whether his intentions are serious or not;
and they are very apt to do this as soon as the kissing becomes a
business on your part. But to return to the _modus operandi_ of a kiss.
Delicacy in this intellectual amusement is the chief thing. Don’t—by
the bones of Johannes Secundus!—don’t bungle the matter by a five
minutes torture, like a cat playing with a mouse. Kiss a girl
deliberately, sir—sensible all the time of the great duty you are
performing—but remember also that a kiss, to be enjoyed in its full
flavor, should be taken fresh, like champaigne just from the flask. Ah!
then you get it in all its airy and _spirituelle_ raciness. If you wish
a sentimental kiss—and after all they are perhaps the spicier—steal
your arm around her waist, take her hand softly in your own, and then,
tenderly drawing her towards you, kiss her as you might imagine a zephyr
to do it! I never exactly timed the manœuvre with a stop-watch, but I’ve
no doubt the affair might be managed very handsomely in ten seconds. The
exact point where a lady should be kissed may be determined by the
intersection of two imaginary lines, one drawn perpendicularly down the
centre of the face, and the other passing at right angles through the
line of the mouth. Two such old codgers as you and I may talk of these
things without indiscretion; and, it is but doing our duty by the world,
to give others the benefits of our experience. Some of these days, when
I get leisure, I shall write a book called “Kissing Made Easy.” The
title—don’t you think?—will make it sell.
Kissing, however, has its evils, for the world, you know, is made up of
sweet and sour. One often gets into a way of kissing a pretty girl by
way of a flirtation, and ends by tumbling head over ears into love with
her. This is taking the disease in its most virulent form; but—thank
the stars!—it is most apt to attend on cases where the gentleman has
not been used to kissing. I would recommend, as a general rule, that
every one should be inoculated to the matter, for, depend upon it, this
is the only way to save them from a desperate and perhaps fatal attack.
I once knew a fine fellow—talented, rich, in a profession—whose only
fault, indeed, was that he had never kissed anybody but his sister. He
had the most holy horror of a man who could so insult the dignity of the
sex as to kiss a lady—and, I verily believe, the sight of such a thing,
in his younger days, would have thrown him into a fit. At length he fell
in love; and as sweet a creature was Blanche Merrion as ever trod
greensward, or sang from very gaiety of heart on the morning air. Day
after day her lover watched her from afar, as a worshipper would watch
the countenance of a saint; but months passed by and still he dared not
lift his eyes to her face, when her own were shining on him from their
calm, holy depths. Other suitors appeared, and if Blanche had fancied
them, she would have been lost forever to Howard, through his own
timidity; but happily none of them touched her heart, and she went on
her way “in maiden meditation fancy free.” Often, in her own gay style
of raillery, would she torment poor Howard about his bashfulness; and
during these moments, I verily believe, he would gladly have exchanged
his situation for that of any heretic that ever roasted in an
inquisitorial fire. A twelvemonth passed by, and yet Howard could not
muster courage to express his devotion, and if, perchance, his eyes
sometimes revealed his tale, the confession faded from them as soon as
the liquid ones of Blanche were turned upon him. If ever one suffered,
he suffered from his love. He worshipped his divinity in awe-struck
humility, scarcely deeming she would deign to see his adoration. He
might have said with Helena,
“thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more.”
At length a friend of Howard asked him to wait on him as a groomsman,
and who should be his partner but Blanche! Now, of all places for
kissing, commend me to a wedding. The groom kisses the bride—and the
groomsmen kiss the bridemaids—and each one of the company kisses his
partner, or if any one is destitute of the article he makes a dumb show
of kissing somebody behind the door. But the groomsmen have the cream of
the business, for it’s one of the perquisites of their office that they
should kiss their partners, as a sort of recompense for shawling them,
and chaperoning them, and paying them those thousand little attentions
which are so exquisite to a lady, and which a gentleman can only pay,
especially if the lady is grateful, at some peril to his peace of mind.
Ah! sir, a bridemaid is a bachelor’s worst foe—one plays with edge
tools when he waits at a wedding—and though you may dance with an angel
or flirt with a Houri, I’d never—heaven bless you—recommend you to
wait on a girl unless you were ready to marry. Seeing other folks
married is infectious, and, before you know it, you’ll find yourself
engaged. It was a lucky chance for Howard when he was asked to wait on
Blanche, for I would stake my life that nothing else could have cured
him of his bashfulness. Nor even then would he have succeeded but for an
accident. One lovely afternoon—it was a country wedding—he happened to
pass by a little sort of summer-house in a secluded spot in the grounds
attached to the mansion, and who should he see within but Blanche,
asleep on a garden sofa. I wish I could paint her to you as she then
appeared. One arm was thrown negligently back over her head, while the
other fell towards the floor, holding the book she had been reading. Her
long, soft eye-lashes were drooped on her cheek. Her golden curls fell,
like a shower of sunbeams scattered through the forest leaves on a
secluded stream, around her brow and down her neck; and one fair tress,
stealing across her face and nestling in her bosom, waved in her breath,
and rose and fell with the gentle heaving of that spotless bust. A
slight color was on her cheek, and her lips were parted in a smile, the
smallest space imaginable disclosing the pure teeth beneath, seeming
like a line of pearl set betwixt rubies, or a speck of snow within a
budding rose. Howard would have retreated, but he could not, and so he
stood gazing on her entranced, until, forgetting everything in that
sight, he stole towards her, and falling on his knees, hung a moment
enraptured over her. As he thus knelt, his eyes glanced an instant on
the book. It was the poems of Campbell, and open at a passage which he
had the evening before commended. Blanche had pencilled one verse which
he had declared especially beautiful. His heart leapt into his mouth.
His eyes stole again to that lovely countenance, and instinctively he
bent down and pressed his lips softly to those of Blanche. Slight,
however, as was the kiss, it broke her slumber, and she started up; but
when her eyes met those of Howard the crimson blood rushed over her
face, and brow, and down even to her bosom, while the lover stood, even
more abashed, rooted to the spot. Poor fellow! He would have given the
world if he could have recalled that moment’s indiscretion. He stammered
out something for an apology, he knew not what, yet without daring to
lift his eyes to her face. She made no reply. A minute of silence
passed. Could he have offended past forgiveness? He was desperate with
agony and terror at the thought—and, in that very desperation, resolved
to face the worst, and looked up. The bosom of Blanche heaved violently,
her eyes were downcast, her cheek was changing from pale to red and from
red to pale. All her usual gaiety had disappeared, and she stood
embarrassed and confused, yet without any marks of displeasure, such as
the lover had looked for, on her countenance. A sudden light flashed on
him, a sudden boldness took possession of him. He lifted the hand of
Blanche—that tiny hand which now trembled in his grasp—and said,
“Blanche! dear Blanche! if you forgive me, be still more merciful, and
give me a right to offend thus again. I love you, oh! how deeply and
fervently!—I have loved you with an untiring devotion for years. Will
you, dearest, be mine?” and in a torrent of burning eloquence—for the
long pent-up emotions of years had now found vent—he poured forth the
whole history of his love, its doubts and fears, its sensitiveness, its
adoration, its final hope. And did Blanche turn away? No—you needn’t
smile so meaningly, you old villain—she sank sobbing on her lover’s
shoulder, who, when at length she was soothed, was as good as his word,
and sinned by a second kiss. It turned out that Blanche had loved him
all along, and it was only his bashfulness that had blinded him, else by
a thousand little tokens he might have seen what, in other ways, it
would have been unmaidenly for her to reveal. Now, sir, months of mutual
sorrow might have been saved to both Blanche and her lover, if he had
only possessed a little more assurance—he would have possessed that
assurance if he had been less finical—if he had been less finical he
would not have been shocked at kissing a pretty girl. Isn’t that
demonstrated like a problem in the sixth book?
I might multiply instances, egad, for fifty years of experience _will_
store one’s memory with facts, and by the aid of them I could reel off
arguments for this accomplishment faster than a rocket whizzes into the
sky. _Kissing_, sir—but there goes the supper bell, and I see your
meerschaum’s out. We will rejoin the ladies, and after taking our Mocha,
set the young folks to dancing, while you and I accompany them on the
shovel and tongs!—Ta-ra-la-ra!
* * * * *