DIFFERENT KINDS OF KISSES: THE LONG, LONG KISS, THE
PAROXYSMAL, THE ICY, THE WESTERN, THE LIFE-TEEMING KISS—
HOW COLLEGE GIRLS KISS—THE KISS OF A FEMALE CORNETIST—
PLATONIC KISSES—ROMAN OSCULATION—CHARACTERISTICS OF
KISSES—THE KISS AS A PUNISHMENT—THE KING OF
BABY-KISSERS—THE KISS AFTER MARRIAGE—STOLEN KISSES,
SOMETIMES CALLED “DAINTY BITS OF PLUNDER”—THE STORY OF A
CIRCASSIAN GIRL.
There are a great many kinds of kisses. There is Byron’s “long, long
kiss of youth and love.” A rural suitor kissed his girl repeatedly after
this fashion. When he finally ceased, the tears came into her eyes, and
she said, in sad tones: “Ah, Rufus! I fear you have ceased to love me!”
“Oh, no, I haven’t,” he replied, with a wearied air, “but I must
breathe!” The “paroxysmal kiss” has been described as a kiss “buttered
with soul-lightning.” Very different from the kiss of a certain
prominent actress:
Hail! kiss of Mary Anderson, all hail!
All hail, we sing, for hail is ice in chunks,
And Mary’s kisses are but chunks of ice.
Brittle and snappy, with no sign of thaw,
Or warmth that meets and pins two souls
Together at the touch of lips.
There is a story told of a light, free-hearted Western girl—probably
auburn-haired—who, while engaged in the osculatory performance with her
lover, swooped down upon him like a summer fog upon a millstone and
scooped him in. She sat in his lap and kissed him with a kissness which
an emotional actress would have given ten years of her life to imitate
upon the stage. It was an earthquake of love, a simoon of affection. She
kissed him until his back hair smoked.
It is said that in nearly all the famous colleges for women there is a
special teacher or doctress in physiology, and in the so-called oral
recitations the pernicious effects of osculation are considered at great
length. By way of tolerating what seems to be a necessary evil, various
theories are advanced and various provisions advocated. The girl who
comes from Smith College, Northampton, kisses on the oblique lines that
fall from the left corner of your mouth, but when kissed, is so adroit
in the way she jerks her head, that the point of salutation may be found
on a radius from the right of her demure little mouth. The Vassar
graduate kisses more than her Smith College friend, but the chin is her
choice, as you will observe in an attempt to salute her. The seniors
from Wellesley press their kisses high up on the face, almost under the
sweep of the eyelash, and the Lake Forest and Harvard Annex maidens kiss
at a point equally distant from the nose and ear.
Very peculiar is the kiss of the female cornetist. A young man who had
attended a concert gives his experience. “I had known her in childhood,
when we together hunted the same schoolmaster with bean-blowers, and at
the conclusion of her cornet solo I greeted her for the first time in
several years. Of course we kissed each other impulsively. Good heavens!
That was my mental exclamation. I felt as though I had been hit with
brass knuckles or smacked by a cast-iron image. I instinctively pressed
my handkerchief to my benumbed mouth, and looked for the weapon with
which I had been assaulted. It was the girl’s kiss, however, that I had
felt. Good playing on the cornet depends upon the amount of
inflexibility which can be imparted to the upper lip. Hers had become
fairly adamantine.”
There is the “life-teeming kiss,” and, on the other hand, there is the
Platonic kiss.
But what Platonic kisses were
I doubt if Plato ever knew—
Not like, my birdie, I infer,
The long, sweet kisses I give you,
And those you give me back again,
Repeated oft, and never done;
Not thus, I fancy, could it be
Platonic brides were ever won.
As for the gallant Frenchman, he said:
Kiss me with some slow, heavy kiss,
That plucks the heart out at the lips.
The Romans had different words to distinguish the different kinds of
kisses. A kiss between two friends was called osculum; basium, a kiss of
politeness; and suavium, a kiss of love. The Roman emperors saluted
their principal officers by a kiss. Kissing the mouth or the eyes was
the usual compliment upon any happy event. Soldiers kissed the hand of
the general when he quitted his office. Fathers amongst the Romans had
so much delicacy that they never embraced their wives in the presence of
their daughters. 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 or not.
Kisses are forced, unwilling, cold, comfortless, frigid and frozen,
chaste, timid, rosy, balmy, humid, dewy, trembling, soft, gentle,
tender, tempting, fragrant, sacred, hallowed, divine, soothing, joyful,
affectionate, delicious, rapturous, deep-drawn and inebriating, ardent,
flaming and akin to fire, ravishing, lingering and long. One also hears
of parting, tear-dewed, savory, loathsome, poisonous, treacherous,
false, rude, stolen, and great fat noisy kisses.
There is the proud kiss, a pledge of eternal hatred, which strikes the
recipient like a falling avalanche of Alpine snow. There is the icy
kiss, which sends your heart into your boots and almost stifles the ebb
and flow of one’s life-blood. There is the frothy kiss, which means
nothing, and is common between relations and friends. There is the
hypocritical, or Judas kiss, which gives you a convulsive bang of
pretended affection on both cheeks—lips saying, “I am so glad to see
you,” etc., and the heart saying, “I dislike you, and if I could show
it, I would.” There is the spiteful kiss, which, whilst it seems teeming
with sweetness, would like to impart venom with the embrace. There is
the leather kiss, which gives back to the kisser no more feeling
response than the orifice of a gutta-percha speaking-tube, and as
comfortless as frozen water to a starved snake; and there is the noisy
kiss.
There’s a formal kiss of fashion,
And a burning kiss of passion,
A father’s kiss,
A mother’s kiss,
And a sister’s kiss to move;
There’s a traitor’s kiss of gold,
Like a serpent’s clammy fold,
A first kiss,
A stolen kiss,
And the thrilling kiss of love;
A meeting kiss,
A maiden kiss,
A kiss when fond hearts sever,
But the saddest kiss
On earth is this—
A kiss to part forever.
There is the first kiss of love:
When a youth and maid of demeanor gay,
But still unversed in impassioned speech,
Are seen to return from their stroll some day
With a glorified look in the face of each—
A look as of mingled life-tides set
Hence evermore to a common goal—
You may be sure that their lips have met
In that kiss which compasseth soul with soul.
Moore sings of a lover who taught his sweetheart how to kiss in the
dark, and chides her afterwards for her dullness in learning the lesson.
“Cease, cease,” the blushing girl replied,
And in her milky arms she caught me;
“How can you thus your pupil chide?
You know _’twas in the dark_ you taught me!”
During the late rebellion, so much kissing had to be done on the part of
the soldiers in bidding adieu to their female friends that an ingenious
officer reduced the operation to three motions. First motion: Bend the
right knee, straighten the left, bring the head on a line with the
piece; at the same time extend the arms and clasp the cheeks of the
piece firmly in both hands. Second motion: Bend the body slightly
forward, pucker the mouth slightly, and apply the lips smartly to the
muzzle mouldings. Third motion: Break off promptly in both legs to
escape the jarring or injury should the piece recoil.
There is the pleasing punishment of a kiss. In an anonymous poem, a
lover tells what he would do to his sweetheart if she offended him; he
would whip her with a feather, give her a cross of pearl, and smother
her with roses.
And if she dared her _lips_ to pout,
Like many pert young misses,
I’d wind my arm her waist about
And punish her with kisses.
One of the sweetest poems on the subject of a kiss is after Catullus,
the Roman poet:
Kiss me softly, and speak to me low,
Malice has ever a vigilant ear;
What if Malice were lurking near?
Kiss me, dear!
Kiss me softly, and speak to me low.
Kiss me softly, and speak to me low,
Envy, too, has a watchful ear;
What if Envy should chance to hear?
Kiss me dear!
Kiss me softly, and speak to me low.
Kiss me softly, and speak to me low;
Trust me, darling, the time is near,
When we may love with never a fear.
Kiss me, dear!
Kiss me softly, and speak to me low.
In the spring of 1888 it was asserted of Congressman Lewis E. McComas,
of Maryland, that he was the king of baby-kissers, having reduced
baby-kissing to a fine art. The proceeding was something like this:
First of all, Mr. McComas stands over the baby, and beams on it with his
large, tender, hazel eyes. Then, as if moved by a sudden and
irresistible impulse of affection, he snatches the little one to his
bosom with all the fervor of the deserted stage mother. After pressing
it for a moment with head bowed in emotion, he holds it in front of him
in a horizontal position, beams once more on the little face; then his
head slowly descends, there is an agonizing pause before the big
moustache reaches the little lips, the angels hovering about suspend the
flapping of their wings, a long-drawn sigh of joy proceeds from the
Congressman’s breast, a low, sweet, lingering, honey-suggesting smack is
heard—and the deed is done.
There used to be a minstrel ballad describing the wedding of our simian
ancestor. It was said:
The monkey married the baboon’s sister,
Smacked his lips, and then he kissed her—
Kissed so hard he raised a blister—
After which, the chronicler asserts:
She set up a howl.
There is the kiss after marriage. A story is told of a wife who was
scolding her husband because he had found fault with certain conduct of
their daughter. The old gentleman lost all patience, finally.
“Now, see here, old woman,” said he, kindly, but firmly; “if you don’t
hush your nonsense and dry up, I’ll tell Matilda’s beaux not to be
caught swinging on the gate with her at night, and I’ll tell ’em why.”
“You will, hey?”
“Yes, I will; because when I was a courting young man, I was swinging on
the gate with a young woman, one night, and Sam Solomon happened to pass
by just as she gave me a good-night kiss.”
She commenced feeling around for something.
“It was the most unlucky kiss I ever got, for Sam gave up trying after
that, and as soon as he got out of the way, it was me or nobody.”
It was lucky he got over the fence and around the corner as quick as he
did, or the surgeon wouldn’t have had such an easy job of it.
You will find, my dear boy, that the dearly-prized kiss,
Which with rapture you snatched from the half willing miss,
Is sweeter by far than the legalized kisses
You give the same girl when you’ve made her a Mrs.
It might be well to memorize one or two proverbs on this subject: “To
kiss a man’s wife, or wipe his knife, is but a thankless office.” “He
that kisseth his wife in the market-place shall have enough to teach
him.”
Finally, there is the stolen kiss. The bold lover says:
Kiss her gently, but be sly,
Kiss her when there’s no one by,
Steal your kiss, for then ’tis meetest,
Stolen kisses are the sweetest.
The more backward swain _argues_ the matter to himself:
If I should steal a little kiss,
Oh! would she weep, I wonder?
I tremble at the thought of bliss—
If I should steal a little kiss:
Such pouting lips would never miss
The dainty bit of plunder;
If I should steal a little kiss,
Oh! would she weep, I wonder?
He longs to steal a kiss of mine—
He may, if he’ll return it!
If I can read the tender sign,
He longs to steal a kiss of mine;
“In love and war”—you know the line.
Why cannot he discern it?
He longs to steal a kiss of mine,
He may, if he’ll return it.
And the man of observation has given his experience in the matter:
Beneath a shady tree they sat;
He held her hand, she held his hat,
I held my breath and lay right flat—
They kissed—I saw them do it.
He held that kissing was no crime;
She held her head up every time;
I held my peace, and wrote this rhyme,
While they thought no one knew it.
The prudent Scotch girl has expressed the views of many of her sex in
regard, not to the impropriety of kissing, but of kissing “before folk”:
Behave yourself before folk,
And dinna be sae rude to me,
As kiss me sae before folk.
It’s no through hatred o’ a kiss,
That I sae plainly tell you this,
But, ah! I tak’ it sae amiss
To be sae teased before folk.
Behave yoursel’ before folk,
When we’re alone, ye may tak’ one,
But nent a ane before folk.
A Circassian was walking along one road, and a woman along another. The
roads finally united, and reaching the point of junction at the same
time, they walked on together. The man was carrying a large iron kettle
on his back; in one hand he held the legs of a live chicken, in the
other a cane, and he was leading a goat. They neared a dark ravine. Said
the woman: “I am afraid to go through that ravine with you; it is a
lonely place, and you might overpower me and kiss me by force.” Said the
man: “How can I possibly overpower you and kiss you by force, when I
have this iron kettle on my back, a cane in one hand, a live chicken in
the other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be tied hand and
foot.” “Yes,” replied the woman; “but if you should stick your cane in
the ground and tie your goat to it, and turn the kettle bottom upward
and put the chicken under, then you might wickedly kiss me in spite of
my resistance.” “Success to thy ingenuity, O woman!” said the rejoicing
man to himself; “I should never have thought of this or similar
expedients.” And when they came to the ravine, he stuck his cane into
the ground, and tied the goat to it, and gave the chicken to the woman,
saying: “Hold it while I cut some grass for the goat,” and then—so runs
the legend—lowering the kettle from his shoulders, he put the fowl under
it, and wickedly kissed the woman, as she was afraid he would.