his hair from his brow, and kissed that, too. He suddenly seemed to rouse
himself; the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.
“‘It is you,—is it, Jane? You are come back to me, then?’
“‘I am.’”
* * * * *
In “Lothair,” Mr. Disraeli does not leave his hero and heroine until they
start to “walk the long path in peace together:”
“‘Where can they have all gone?’ said Lady Corisande, looking round. ‘We
must find them.’
“‘And leave this garden?’ said Lothair. ‘And I without a flower, the only
one without a flower? I am afraid that is significant of my lot.’
“‘You shall choose a rose,’ said Lady Corisande.
“‘Nay; the charm is, that it should be your choice.’
“But choosing the rose lost more time, and, when Corisande and Lothair
reached the arches of golden yew, there were no friends in sight.
“‘I think I hear sounds this way,’ said Lothair, and he led his companion
farther from home.
“‘I see no one,’ said Corisande, distressed, and when they had advanced a
little way.
“‘We are sure to find them in good time,’ said Lothair. ‘Besides, I
wanted to speak to you about the garden at Muriel. I wanted to induce
you to go there and help me to make it. Yes,’ he added, after some
hesitation, ‘on this spot—I believe on this very spot—I asked the
permission of your mother two years ago to express to you my love. She
thought me a boy, and she treated me as a boy. She said I knew nothing
of the world, and both our characters were unformed. I know the world
now. I have committed many mistakes, doubtless many follies; have formed
many opinions, and have changed many opinions; but to one I have been
constant, in one I am unchanged, and that is my adoring love to you.’
“She turned pale, she stopped, then, gently taking his arm, she hid her
face in his breast.
“He soothed and sustained her agitated frame, and sealed with an embrace
her speechless form. Then, with soft thoughts and softer words, clinging
to him, he induced her to resume their stroll, which both of them now
wished might assuredly be undisturbed. They had arrived at the limit
of the pleasure-grounds, and they wandered into the park and its most
sequestered parts. All this time Lothair spoke much, and gave her the
history of his life since he first visited her home. Lady Corisande said
little, but, when she was more composed, she told him that from the first
her heart had been his, but everything seemed to go against her hopes.
Perhaps at last, to please her parents, she would have married the Duke
of Brecon, had not Lothair returned; and what he had said to her that
morning at Crecy House had decided her resolution, whatever might be her
lot, to unite it to no one else but him. But then came the adventure of
the crucifix, and she thought all was over for her, and she quitted town
in despair.”
But not always is the ending thus smoothed and harmonized, mutual
consecration thus rewarded, mutual trust thus irradiated. Sometimes for
the diadem of love is substituted a crown of thorns, and for the aureole
of faith and hope the gloom and shadow of despair; sometimes the steps
which together had been peaceful and happy are made to diverge into the
pathways which lead through dreary interpretation of duty, or fateful
compulsion, to that abiding sorrow which only finds rest in the grave.
* * * * *
Here is a sad picture from Anne M. Crane’s “Opportunity:”
“Gazing upon this agony of despair, an uncontrollable impulse swept over
the woman, seized upon her, to stretch out her hands and cry to him,—
“‘Douglas, your only mistake has been in not seeing that my heart is not
dead, but sleeping; that you could still teach me to love you; that we
might yet be supremely happy.’
“How mighty was the temptation would never be known except to Harvey
Berney and her God; but its power culminated and passed before he found
strength to speak again. No, he had voluntarily pledged his word and
promise to another, and that pledge must be redeemed; he must bear his
hard fate as best he might. She thought of the utter desolation which
would descend on another woman’s life, were she now to take from it what
it had rightfully won. For herself it was the surrender of a future
bliss, of a joy which would have come forth in the fulness of time; to
that other it would be annihilation of happiness now and forever. Broken
heart on the woman’s side, broken faith on the man’s,—that price must not
be paid for any earthly good. For his own sake she did not dare to grant
his heart’s desire; ah, yes! and the desire of her own. Better misery,
failure, and disappointment than that they should willingly sink to
false degeneracy.
“Swiftly but surely she had counted the cost, when, after a moment, the
man’s voice again broke the stillness:
“‘From that night I should have gone down to destruction if Rose had not
put out her hand to me. I clung to it then, and my one chance for heaven
and earth is to cling to it until I die. You women, who lead such quiet,
sheltered lives, can never know or comprehend a man’s terrible necessity
for some semblance of hope and happiness. Rose takes me just as I am, and
I pray, for her sake, that she may save me.’
“‘And I pray the same prayer for your sake, and I know that it will be
answered,’ cried Harvey’s quivering voice, as the hot tears sprang to her
eyes.
“The man gazed straight into them.
“I shall remember that,’ he said, in a different tone from that which he
had been using. ‘I shall always remember that, though we part now perhaps
forever. My love is a love for life and death, for time and eternity,
yet for this world we die to each other from to-night. But, Harvey,’ he
said, coming close to her and speaking with a horrible breathlessness, as
though soul and body were being torn asunder, ‘dying men gain their own
rights and privileges.’ He took that noble, tender face within his hands,
and raised it for one last long look. But he could not, he would not
go, taking with him only that. Suddenly the strong arms were about her,
holding her, straining her to that madly-throbbing heart, while upon lips
and cheeks and brow fell long burning kisses, each one of which seemed to
claim and seal her as his own. Suddenly again she felt herself released,
and after a moment knew that he was gone. Then she sank down before the
fire, heart-sick and desolate, knowing that she had surrendered forever
the man who loved her and whom she might have loved.”
But both remembered the words of Robert Browning, “This life of mine
must be lived out, and a grave thoroughly earned,” and both bravely and
patiently endured unto the end. Far different was the tragic fate of the
“Bride of Lammermoor:”
“Lucy covered her face with her hands, and the tears, in spite of her,
forced their way between her fingers. ‘Forgive me,’ said Ravenswood,
taking her right hand, which, after slight resistance, she yielded to
him, still continuing to shade her face with the left; ‘I am too rude—too
rough—too intractable to deal with any being so soft and gentle as you
are. Forget that so stern a vision has crossed your path of life, and let
me pursue mine, sure that I can meet with no worse misfortune after the
moment it divides me from your side.’
“Lucy wept on, but her tears were less bitter. Each attempt which the
master made to explain his purpose of departure only proved a new
evidence of his desire to stay; until, at length, instead of bidding
her farewell, he gave his faith to her forever and received her troth
in return. The whole passed so suddenly, and arose so much out of the
immediate impulse of the moment, that ere the master of Ravenswood could
reflect upon the consequences of the step which he had taken, their lips
as well as their hands had pledged the sincerity of their affection.”
Every reader of this sorrowful story will remember how Lucy was forced by
her mother into an agreement to marry a detested wretch on account of his
wealth; how Ravenswood confronted the family and poured out the terrors
of his wrath and indignation; how he closed his scathing invectives by
turning to Lucy with the words, “And to you, madam, I have nothing
further to say, except to pray to God that you may not become a world’s
wonder for this act of wilful and deliberate perjury;” how Lucy, in a
paroxysm of insanity, attempted to murder Bucklaw in the bridal chamber;
and how, soon after, death closed for her the tragic scenes of earth.
* * * * *
How a loving kiss enfeebled and finally paralyzed the arm of a murderess
is told by Bulwer-Lytton in his “Lucretia:”
“Late in the evening, before she retired to rest, Helen knocked gently at
her aunt’s door. A voice quick and startled bade her enter. She came in
with her sweet, caressing look, and took Lucretia’s hand, which struggled
from the clasp. Bending over that haggard brow, she said, simply, yet to
Lucretia’s ear the voice seemed that of command, ‘Let me kiss you this
night!’ and her lips pressed that brow. The murderess shuddered, and
closed her eyes; when she opened them, the angel visitor was gone.”
What followed was the theme of a conference with a fellow-conspirator,
from which we extract the following dialogue:
“Shutting the door with care, and turning the key, Gabriel said, with
low, suppressed passion,—
“‘Well, your mind seems wandering. Speak!’
“‘It is strange,’ said Lucretia, in hollow tones. ‘Can Nature turn
accomplice, and befriend us here?’
“‘Nature! did you not last night administer the——’
“‘No,’ interrupted Lucretia. ‘No; she came into the room; she kissed me
here, on the brow that even then was meditating murder. The kiss burned;
it burns still;—it eats, into the brain like remorse. But I did not
yield; I read again her false father’s protestation of love; I read again
the letter announcing the discovery of my son, and remorse lay still; I
went forth as before; I stole into her chamber; I had the fatal crystal
in my hand——’
“‘Well! well!’
“‘And suddenly there came the fearful howl of a dog: and the dog’s fierce
eyes glared on me; I paused, I trembled; Helen started, woke, called
aloud; I turned and fled. The poison was not given.’”
And afterwards she said,—
“‘That kiss still burns; I will stir in this no more.’”
* * * * *
When it comes to the “last scene of all that ends this strange eventful
history,” few can equal in power and pathos the popular writer, Samuel
Warren, as witness one or two passages in the “Diary of a Physician.”
In “The Wife,” which is a record of incredible atrocities on the part of
a brutal husband, and of patient endurance and endless forgiveness on the
part of the wife, we come to the closing scene:
“‘Well, George, we must part!’ said she, closing her eyes and breathing
softly, but fast. Her husband sobbed like a child, with his face buried
in his handkerchief. ‘Do you forgive me?’ he murmured, half choked with
emotion.
“‘Yes, dear—dear—dearest husband! God knows how I do from my heart! I
forgive all the little you have ever grieved me about.’
“‘Oh, Jane—Jane—Jane!’ groaned the man, suddenly stooping over the bed
and kissing her lips in an apparent ecstasy. He fell down on his knees
and cried bitterly.
“‘Rise, George, rise,’ said his wife, faintly. He obeyed her, and she
again clasped his hand in hers.
“‘George, are you there—are you?’ she inquired, in a voice fainter and
fainter.
“‘Here I am, love!—oh, look on me! look on me!’ he sobbed, gazing
steadily on her features. ‘Say once more that you forgive me! Let me hear
your dear, blessed voice again—or—or—’
“‘I do! kiss me—kiss me,’ she murmured, almost inaudibly; and her
unworthy, her guilty husband kissed away the last expiring breath of one
of the loveliest and most injured women whose hearts have been broken by
a husband’s brutality.”
In that singular instance of premonstration, “The Broken Heart,” we
follow with eager interest to its natural and most sorrowful conclusion
the sorrowful revelation so unexpectedly made to a gentle and pensive
girl, in the midst of her song at a brilliant party, of the death of her
affianced on the battle-field. There was nothing left for her then but to
welcome the peace of the grave,—
“Like a lily drooping,
Bow her head and die.”
On the family’s being summoned into the chamber of death,—
“Her sister Jane was the first that entered, her eyes swollen with
weeping, and seemingly half suffocated with the effort to conceal her
emotions.
“‘Oh, my darling, precious,—my own sister Annie!’ she sobbed, and knelt
down at the bedside, flinging her arms round her sister’s neck, kissing
the gentle sufferer’s cheeks and mouth.
“‘Annie! love! darling!—don’t you know me?’ she groaned, kissing her
forehead repeatedly. Could I help weeping? All who had entered were
standing around the bed, sobbing, and in tears. I kept my fingers at the
wrist of the dying sufferer, but could not feel whether or not the pulse
beat, which, however, I attributed to my own agitation.
“‘Speak—speak—my darling Annie! speak to me; I am your poor sister Jane!’
sobbed the agonized girl, continuing fondly kissing her sister’s cold
lips and forehead. She suddenly started, exclaimed, ‘Oh, God! _she’s
dead!_’ and sank instantly senseless on the floor. Alas, alas! it was too
true; my sweet and broken-hearted patient was no more.”
* * * * *
The author of “Guy Livingstone” gives us these noteworthy passages:
“He bent down his lofty head, and instantly their lips met, and were set
together fast.
“A kiss! Tibullus, Secundus, Moore, and a thousand other poets and
poetasters have rhymed on the word for centuries, decking it with the
choicest and quaintest conceits. But, remember, it was with a kiss that
the greatest of all criminals sealed the unpardonable sin; it was a
kiss which brought on Francesca punishment so unutterably piteous that
he swooned at the sight who endured to look on all the other horrors of
nine-circled hell.”
“He laid the light burden, that scarcely weighed upon his arm, down on
the pillows, very softly and gently, smoothing them mechanically with his
hand. Then he stooped and pressed one kiss more on the pale lips: they
never felt it, though the passion of that lengthened caress might almost
have waked the dead. And so those two parted, to meet again upon earth
never more.
“The next time woman’s lips touched Guy Livingstone’s, they were his
mother’s, and he had been a corpse an hour.”
[Illustration]
THE KISS IN HUMOROUS STORY AND ANECDOTE.
FATHER TOM AND THE POPE.
Every one who knows anything of the humorous literature of the century
has laughed a hundred times over that wonderful story of “Father Tom
and the Pope; or, A Night at the Vatican,” which has been attributed to
so many of the leading Irish humorists, and is enough of itself to have
made the reputation of the best of them. From its first appearance, in
“Blackwood,” Catholics and Protestants alike have enjoyed its marvellous
and abounding fun, and it is one of the few things written in our time
which people do not refuse to read to-day because of having read them
yesterday and the day before.
Those who know the story will remember that the reverend Father being
“in Room, ov coorse the Pope axed him to take pot-look wid him,” and
they proceeded together to “invistigate the composition of distilled
liquors.” As sociability grew warm between them, Father Tom volunteered
to astonish his Holiness with a new “preparation ov chymicals,” after the
manner of the “ould counthry.” To make this “miraculous mixthir” exactly
what it ought to be, his reverence insisted that “a faymale hand was
ondispinsably necessary to produce the adaptation ov the particles,” and
the butler of the Vatican had accordingly brought up “Miss Eliza,” one of
the fairest maids of the household, that she might stir the milk in the
skillet with the little finger of her right hand. Miss Eliza is described
as “stepping like a three-year-old, and blushing like the brake of day,”
and the Pope had very early to rebuke his reverence with some sternness
for his “deludhering talk to the young woman.” Nothing daunted, however,
the gallant Father managed somehow to upset the candle and put the
“windy-curtains” in peril of fire, and while the rest of the company were
engaged in “getting things put to rights,” the incident, or accident,
occurred which can only be told in the words of the story.
“And now,” says Mickey Hefferman, the story-teller, “I have to tell you
ov a raally onpleasant occurrence. If it was a Prodesan that was in it,
I’d say that while the Pope’s back was turned, Father Tom made free wid
the two lips ov Miss Eliza; but, upon my conscience, I believe it was
a mere mistake that his Holiness fell into, on account ov his being an
ould man and not having aither his eyesight or his hearing very parfect.
At any rate it can’t be denied but that he had a sthrong imprission that
sich was the case; for he wheeled about as quick as thought jist as
his riv’rence was sitting down, and charged him wid the offince plain
and plump. ‘Is it kissing my housekeeper before my face you are, you
villain?’ says he. ‘Go down out o’ this,’ says he to Miss Eliza, ‘and do
you be packing off wid you,’ he says to Father Tom, ‘for it’s not safe,
so it isn’t, to have the likes ov you in a house where there’s timptation
in your way.’
“‘Is it me?’ says his riv’rence; ‘why, what would your Holiness be at, at
all? Sure I wasn’t doing no sich thing.’
“‘Would you have me doubt the evidence ov my sinses?’ says the Pope;
‘would you have me doubt the testimony ov my eyes and ears?’ says he.
“‘Indeed I would so,’ says his riv’rence, ‘if they pretind to have
informed your Holiness ov any sich foolishness.’
“‘Why,’ says the Pope, ‘I seen you afther kissing Eliza as plain as I see
the nose on your face; I heard the shmack you gave her as plain as ever I
heard thundher.’
“‘And how do you know whether you see the nose on my face or not?’
says his riv’rence; ‘and how do you know whether wrhat you thought was
thundher was thundher at all? Them operations ov the sinses,’ says he,
‘comprises only particular corporayal emotions, connected wid sartin
confused perciptions called sinsations, and isn’t to be depended upon
at all. If we were to follow them blind guides, we might jist as well
turn heretics at ons’t. ’Pon my secret word, your Holiness, it’s naither
charitable nor orthodox ov you to set up the testimony ov your eyes and
ears agin the characther of a clargyman. And now see how aisy it is to
explain all them phwenomena that perplexed you. I ris and went over
beside the young woman because the skillet was boiling over, to help her
to save the dhrop ov liquor that was in it; and as for the noise you
heard, my dear man, it was naither more nor less nor myself dhrawing the
cork out ov this blessed bottle.’
“‘Don’t offer to thrape that upon me!’ says the Pope; ‘here’s the cork in
the bottle still, as tight as a wedge.’
“‘I beg your pardon,’ says his riv’rence; ’that’s not the cork at all,’
says he. ‘I dhrew the cork a good two minits ago, and it’s very purtily
spitted on the end ov this blessed cork-shcrew at this prisint moment;
howandiver you can’t see it, because it’s only its raal prisince that’s
in it. But that appearance that you call a cork,’ says he, ‘is nothing
but the outward spacies and external qualities of the cortical nathur.
Them’s nothing but the accidents of the cork that you’re looking at and
handling; but, as I tould you afore, the raal cork’sdhrew, and is here
prisint on the end ov this nate little insthrument, and it was the noise
I made in dhrawing it, and nothing else, that you mistook for the sound
ov the _pogue_.’
“You know there was no conthravaning what he said, and the Pope couldn’t
openly deny it. Howandiver he thried to pick a hole in it this way.
“‘Granting,’ says he, ‘that there is the differ you say betuxt the
raality ov the cork and them cortical accidents, and that it’s quite
possible, as you allidge, that the thrue cork is raaliy prisint on the
end ov the shcrew, while the accidents keep the mouth of the bottle
stopped; still,’ says he, ‘I can’t undherstand, though willing to acquit
you, how the dhrawing ov the raal cork, that’s onpalpable and widout
accidents, could produce the accident ov that sinsible explosion I heard
jist now.’
“‘All I can say,’ says his riv’rence, ‘is that I’m sinsible it was a raal
accident, anyhow.’
“‘Ay,’ says the Pope, ‘the kiss you gev Eliza, you mane.’
“‘No,’ says his riv’rence, ‘but the report I made.’”
THE STUDENT OF UPSALA.
Mary Howitt, in her “Frederika Bremer and her Swedish Sisters,” repeats
the pleasant story of a university student at Upsala in the early part
of the present century. He was the son of a poor widow, and was standing
with some of his college companions in one of the public walks on a fine
Sunday morning. As they were thus standing, the young daughter of the
governor, a good and beautiful girl, was seen approaching them on her way
to church, accompanied by her governess.
Suddenly the widow’s son exclaimed, “I am sure that young girl would give
me a kiss!”
His companions laughed, and one of them, a rich young fellow, said, “It
is impossible! Thou an utter stranger, and in a public thoroughfare! It
is too absurd to think of.”
“Nevertheless, I am confident of what I say,” returned the other.
The rich student offered to lay a heavy wager that, so far from
succeeding, he would not even venture to propose such a thing.
Taking him at his word, the poor student, the moment the young lady and
her attendant had passed, followed them, and politely addressing them,
they stopped, on which, in a modest and straightforward manner, he said,
speaking to the governor’s daughter, “It entirely rests with Fröken to
make my fortune.”
“How so?” demanded she, greatly amazed.
“I am a poor student,” said he, “the son of a widow. If Fröken would
condescend to give me a kiss, I should win a large sum of money, which,
enabling me to continue my studies, would relieve my mother of a great
anxiety.”
“If success depend on so small a thing,” said the innocent girl, “I can
but comply;” and therewith, sweetly blushing, she gave him a kiss, just
as if he had been her brother.
Without a thought of wrong-doing, the young girl went to church, and
afterwards told her father of the encounter.
The next day the governor summoned the bold student to his presence,
anxious to see the sort of person who had thus dared to accost his
daughter. But the young man’s modest demeanor at once favorably impressed
him. He heard his story, and was so well pleased that he invited him to
dine at the castle twice a week.
In about a year the young lady married the student whose fortune she
had thus made, and who is at the present day a celebrated Swedish
philologist. His amiable wife died a few years since.
TUNNEL STORIES.
The well-known court-plaster incident is said to have occurred in one of
the tunnels of the Hudson River Railroad. A very pretty lady was seated
opposite to a good-looking gentleman who was accompanying a party to
Saratoga Springs. It was observed that this exceedingly handsome young
woman had the smallest bit of court-plaster on a slight abrasion of the
surface of her red upper lip. As the cars rumbled into the darkness
of the tunnel, a slight exclamation of “Oh!” was heard from the lady,
and when the cars again emerged into the light, the little piece of
court-plaster aforesaid had become in some mysterious manner transferred
to the upper lip of the young gentleman! Curious, was it not?
A Western youth played a trick on two school-girls returning home for
vacation, which is thus reported:
Occupying a seat on the train just back of them, he entered into a
flirtation which was in no way discouraged. The train came to a dark
tunnel, and when it got midway he kissed the back of his own hand
audibly,—gave it a regular buss. Each girl, of course, charged the other
with guilt, and the passengers thought possibly the youth had kissed
both. When they got home, each told the joke on the other, and for the
first time two girls have the credit of having been kissed without having
enjoyed that pleasure.
A similar story, but with an improvement, is told of Horace Vernet, the
eminent painter.