courts, and any contribution to the law of the subject is received with
interest. The English papers, therefore, comment with great relish upon
the definition of a marriage engagement given by Judge Neilson, of
Brooklyn, who, in a suit for money damages for blighted affections,
charged the jury that the “gleam of the eye and the conjunction of the
lips are overtures when they become frequent and protracted.” In the
face of such a decision he is a rash man who would say, in the words of
the song, “I know an eye both soft and bright,” and that variety of kiss
known as the “lingering” is positively interdicted to gentlemen who do
not mean business, or who are liable to a change of mind.
THE INGENUITY OF THIEVES.
When the Pope’s chamberlain, who was captured by Italian brigands, paid
fifty thousand francs as ransom-money to the leader of the band, the
sight of the money so transported him that he fell on his knees and
begged to kiss the hand of his captive before he departed. The prelate
stretched out his hand to him, forgetting that he wore a ring of great
value, which the scoundrel, as he kissed the hand, slyly slipped over the
finger and appropriated to himself.
This incident was more than paralleled by French dexterity in a case
which is thus reported by a Paris correspondent:
There is a pretty little creature who has bestowed upon herself the
cognomen of Diane de Bagatelle, with whom a well-known young viscount is
madly in love. Mlle. Diane is a very romantic young lady, with a taste
for the plays and novels of the younger Dumas, and especially for the
“Dame aux Camellias.” So she was not surprised when one day the card of
the Count de X——, the father of the viscount in question, was handed to
her, and an elegant elderly gentleman, faultlessly dressed, and with the
red ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his button-hole, was ushered into
her boudoir.
“My son loves Mademoiselle,” began the count, without further preface.
“I know it,” sighed Diane.
“He has——”
“A sister!” exclaimed the lady, remembering the interview between
Marguerite Gautier and the elder Duval.
“No, not a sister, but a cousin,—his cousin Blanche, to whom he has been
betrothed for years. She pines and weeps, and you, mademoiselle, you and
your fatal charms are the cause.”
“Alas!” sighed Diane, feeling herself Doche and Blanche Pierson rolled
into one and in real earnest.
“Your sensibility does you honor. Will you break with my son at once and
forever? And if two hundred thousand francs——”
“Two hundred thousand francs!”
“I will draw you a check at once.”
“Sir,” exclaimed the lady, “you have not made appeal to a callous heart.
I will make the sacrifice; I will give up Henri. You said, I think, two
hundred thousand?”
“I did. Blessings on you, my child!” exclaimed the count, fervently.
“Write the letter I shall dictate, and the check shall be yours.”
So down Diane sat, and penned the following epistle:
“Dear Henri, I love you no more. In fact, I never have loved you. I love
another. Farewell forever.
“DIANE.”
The count took the letter, inspected it carefully, and placed it in his
pocket-book, from which he then drew a check for the amount named, which
he placed in the lady’s eager hands.
“Allow me, my child, to raise to my lips the gentle hand that has just
saved my son!” A kiss and a tear fell on the dainty hand together; it
was then released, and the aged nobleman departed. He had not been long
gone when Mlle. Diane discovered that her diamond ring, which was valued
at ten thousand francs, had disappeared from her finger; and further
investigations proved that her silverware and other articles of value
had also vanished. The pretended count was no other than a swindler of
the very worst type. The worst of the affair was that the scamp actually
mailed the letter of Mlle. Diane to the viscount, so that the lady found
herself minus an adorer as well as her valuables.
THE MEDICAL VIEW.
DON’T KISS THE BABY.
The promiscuous kissing of children is a pestilent practice. We use the
word advisedly, and it is mild for the occasion. Murderous would be the
proper word, did the kissers know the mischief they do. Yes, madam,
_murderous_; and we are speaking to you. Do you remember calling on your
dear friend Mrs. Brown the other day, with a strip of flannel round your
neck? And when little Flora came dancing into the room, didn’t you pounce
upon her demonstratively, call her a precious little pet, and kiss her?
Then you serenely proceeded to describe the dreadful sore throat that
kept you from prayer-meeting the night before. You had no designs on the
dear child’s life, we know; nevertheless, you killed her! Killed her as
surely as if you had fed her with strychnine or arsenic. Your caresses
were fatal.
Two or three days after, the little pet began to complain of a sore
throat too. The symptoms grew rapidly alarming; and when the doctor came,
the single word _diphtheria_ sufficed to explain them all. To-day a
little mound in Greenwood is the sole memento of your visit.
Of course the mother does not suspect, and would not dare to suspect, you
of any Instrumentality in her bereavement. She charges it to a mysterious
Providence. The doctor says nothing to disturb the delusion; that would
be impolitic, if not cruel: but to an outsider he is free to say that
the child’s death was due directly to your infernal stupidity. Those
are precisely the words: more forcible than elegant, it is true; but
who shall say, under the circumstances, that they are not justifiable?
Remember,
“Evil is wrought by want of thought
As well as by want of heart.”
It would be hard to tell how much of the prevalent sickness and mortality
from diphtheria is due to such want of thought. As a rule, adults have
the disease in so mild a form that they mistake it for a simple cold;
and, as a cold is not contagious, they think nothing of exposing others
to their breath or to the greater danger of labial contact. Taking into
consideration the well-established fact that diphtheria is usually if
not always communicated by the direct transplanting of the malignant
vegetation which causes the disease, the fact that there can be no more
certain means of bringing the contagion to its favorite soil than the act
of kissing, and the further fact that the custom of kissing children on
all occasions is all but universal, it is not surprising that, when the
disease is once imported into a community, it is very likely to become
epidemic.
It would be absurd to charge the spread of diphtheria entirely to the
practice of child-kissing. There are other modes of propagation: though
it is hard to conceive of any more directly suited to the spread of the
infection or more general in its operation. It stands to diphtheria in
about the same relation that promiscuous hand-shaking formerly did to the
itch.
It were better to avoid the practice. The children will not suffer if
they go unkissed; and their friends ought for their sake to forego the
luxury for a season. A single kiss has been known to infect a family; and
the most careful may be in condition to communicate the disease without
knowing it. Beware, then, of playing Judas, and let the babies alone.
EXCESSIVE GALLANTRY.
The late Marquis de Prades-Conti, ex-officer of the body-guard of Charles
X., died from the effects of what might be called an excess of gallantry.
He had never been ill a day, and retained all his activity in spite of
his eighty-two years, but in stooping to kiss the hand of the Dowager
Countess de la Rochepeon, who came to pay him a visit, he fell dead.
THE TREACHEROUS SIDE.
MADAME DE STAEL’S HYPOCRISY.
Coleridge was a man of violent prejudices, and had conceived an
insuperable aversion for France, of which he was not slow to boast. “I
hate,” he would say, “the hollowness of French principles; I hate the
republicanism of French politics; I hate the hostility of the French
people to revealed religion; I hate the artificiality of French cooking;
I hate the acidity of French wines; I hate the flimsiness of the French
language.” He would inveigh with equal acrimony against the unreality
and immorality of the French character of both sexes, especially of the
women; and in justification of his unmeasured invective, he related that
he was one day sitting _tête-à-tête_ with Madame de Staël in London,
when her man-servant entered the room and asked her if she would receive
Lady Davey. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders, and
appeared to shudder with nausea as she turned to him and said, “Ah, ma
foi! ô, mon cher ami! ayez pitié de moi! Mais quoi faire? Cette vilaine
femme! Comme je la déteste! Elle est, vraiment, insupportable!” And then,
on her entry, she flung her arms around her, kissed her on both cheeks,
pressed her to her bosom, and told her that she was more than enchanted
to behold her.
But the query arises, have the French a monopoly of such conventional
duplicity? or may we find its counterpart nearer home?
A JUDAS KISS.
This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it necessary
to bend forward in the carriage and give Bella a kiss. A Judas order of
kiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed Bella’s hand after giving
it, “Upon your own showing, you vain heartless girl, puffed up by the
doting folly of a dustman, I need have no relenting towards _you_.”
DICKENS: _Our Mutual Friend_.
A WIFE’S INFIDELITY.
Heaven support thee, old man! thou hast to pass through the bitterest
trial which honor and affection can undergo,—household treason! When the
wife lifts high the blushless front, and brazens out her guilt; when
the child, with loud voice, throws off all control, and makes boast of
disobedience, man revolts at the audacity; his spirit arms against
his wrong; its face, at least, is bare; the blow, if sacrilegious, is
direct. But when mild words and soft kisses conceal the worst foe Fate
can arm,—when amidst the confidence of the heart starts up the form of
Perfidy,—when out from the reptile swells the fiend in its terror,—when
the breast on which man leaned for comfort has taken counsel to deceive
him,—when he learns that, day after day, the life entwined with his own
has been a lie and a stage mime,—he feels not the softness of grief, nor
the absorption of rage; it is mightier than grief, and more withering
than rage; it is a horror that appalls.
BULWER-LYTTON: _Lucretia_.
ALGERINE REVENGE.
A tragic event occurred in a divorce court at Constantine, in Algeria.
The wife of Bel-Kassem appeared before the Cadi and demanded a divorce
from her husband on the ground that he had ill-treated her. In spite of
the strenuous opposition of the respondent, the Cadi gave judgment in
favor of the lady, who, triumphantly pronouncing the orthodox formula,
“I repudiate thee,” bounced out of the court. The custom of the country
wills that a defeated suitor kiss the judge upon the shoulder, to show
that he acknowledges the justice of his sentence. In accordance with this
usage, Bel-Kassem, in apparent submission, moved toward the Cadi. But as
he drew near him his manner suddenly changed. Dashing aside his burnous,
he sprang upon the unfortunate judge and drove his knife into his breast.
The murderer then threw down his weapon and surrendered himself to the
gendarmes, saying, quietly, “I have killed the Cadi because, according
to the Koran, a judge who gives an unjust sentence deserves to be put to
death.”
ALL FOR SHOW.
Little Antoinette, a lonely little girl, was glad to find any companions.
“Mamma kisses me on the promenade,” she told them, in her artless way.
“She never kisses me at home.”
THACKERAY: _The Newcomes_.
THE KISS FULIGINOUS.
The Italian poet Francesco Gianni is the author of a remarkable sonnet,
in which the avenging kiss of the demons for the kiss of treason is given
with great power, following a no less powerful portraiture of Satan:
“Poi fra le braccia si reco quel tristo,
E con la bocca fumigante e neva
Gli rese il bacio che avea dato al Cristo.”
[Then the malefactor threw himself into his arms, and with mouth black
and smoking—the kiss fuliginous—he gave back the kiss that he had given
to Christ.]
FABULLA.
Martial in his “Epigrams” (xii. 93) makes the following hit:
“Fabulla has found out a way to kiss her lover in the presence of her
husband. She has a little fool whom she kisses over and over again,
when the lover immediately seizes him while he is still wet with the
multitude of kisses, and sends him back forthwith, charged with his own,
to his smiling mistress. How much greater a fool is the husband than the
professed fool!”
Or, as Hay translates it:
“My lady Modish doth this way devise
To kiss her spark before her husband’s eyes:
She slavers o’er her little boy with kisses,
And the gallant receives the reeking blisses;
Then to the little Cupid gives a smack,
And to his laughing mother sends him back.
But if the husband is this way beguiled,
The husband is by much the greater child.”
WOMAN.
Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung,
Not she denied him with unholy tongue;
She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave,
Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.
BARRETT.
THE DESCENT FROM THE TREE.
With that she leaped into her lord’s embrace,
With well-dissembled virtue in her face.
He hugged her close, and kissed her o’er and o’er,
Disturbed with doubts and jealousies no more;
Both, pleased and blessed, renewed their mutual vows,
A fruitful wife and a believing spouse.
POPE: _January and May_.
THE FALSE LADY.
Thy girdle-knife was keen and bright,—
The ribbons wondrous fine,—
’Tween every knot of them you knit,
Of kisses I had nine.
Fond Margaret! false Margaret!
You kissed me, cheek and chin;
Yet, when I slept, that girdle-knife
You sheathed my heart’s blood in.
_Old Ballad._
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST EDWARD II.
Edward, this Mortimer aims at thy life:
Oh, fly him, then! But, Edmund, calm this rage;
Dissemble, or thou diest; for Mortimer
And Isabel do kiss while they conspire:
And yet she bears a face of love, forsooth!
Fie on that love that hatcheth death and hate!
MARLOWE.
PERJURY.
Sworn on every slight pretence,
Till perjuries are common as bad pence,
While thousands, careless of the damning sin,
Kiss the book’s outside who ne’er look within.
COWPER: _Expostulation_.
LADY BOTHWELL’S LAMENT.
Fareweil, fareweil, thou falsest youth
That evir kist a woman’s mouth!
I wish all maides be warned by mee
Nevir to trust man’s curtesy;
For if we doe bot chance to bow,
They’le use us then they care not how.
_Scottish Song._
THE GAY DECEIVER.
Trust him not; his words, though sweet,
Seldom with his heart do meet.
All his practice is deceit;
Every gift it is a bait;
Not a kiss but poison bears;
And most treason in his tears.
BEN JONSON: _Hue and Cry after Cupid_.
THE LURES OF THE ENCHANTRESS.
She shroudeth vice in virtue’s veil,
Pretending good in ill;
She offereth joy, but bringeth grief;
A kiss—where she doth kill.
SOUTHWELL.
CUPID’S WILES.
Let not his tears thy easiness beguile,
Nor let him circumvent thee with a smile;
If he to kiss thee ask, his kisses fly;
Poison of asps between his lips doth lie.
ANACREON.
ARTIFICE.
_Amarillis._ Here, take thy Amoret; embrace, and kiss!
_Perigot._ What means my love?
_Amarillis._ To do as lovers should,
That are to be enjoyed, not to be wooed.
There’s ne’er a shepherdess in all the plain
Can kiss thee with more art; there’s none can feign
More wanton tricks.
FLETCHER: _Faithful Shepherdess_.
THE SORROWFUL SIDE.
MARGARET.
The admirers of Goethe’s immortal tragedy “Faust” will remember the
passage in which poor Margaret says to her lover:
Kiss me?—canst no longer do it?
My friend, so short a time thou’rt missing,
And hast unlearned thy kissing?
Why is my heart so anxious on thy breast?
Where once a heaven thy glances did create me,
A heaven thy loving words expressed,
And thou didst kiss, as thou would suffocate me—
Kiss me!
Or I’ll kiss thee.
(_She embraces him._)
Ah, woe! thy lips are chill
And still.
How changed in fashion
Thy passion!
Who has done me this ill?
Nor can they forget the simple song in which, while seated at her
spinning-wheel, she gives utterance to her grief. The closing verses are
these:
And the magic flow
Of his talk, the bliss
In the clasp of his hand,
And, ah, his kiss!
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore;
I never shall find it,
Ah, nevermore!
My bosom yearns
For him alone;
Ah! dared I clasp him,
And hold, and own,
And kiss his mouth
To heart’s desire,
And on his kisses
At last expire!
THE WELCOME HOME.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
GRAY: _Elegy_.
Evidently the poet Gray had in his mind’s eye the following passage from
Lucretius:
“Non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.”
[No joyous home shall receive thee, nor excellent wife, nor will any
dear children of thine run out to meet thee and vie with each other in
snatching kisses from thee, and raise a tumult of sweet but unutterable
affection in thy breast.]
AFTER THE BALL.
[The sisters return from the ball to their chamber, gayly laugh and chat
over the reminiscences of the night, lay aside “the robe of satin and
Brussels lace,” “comb out their braids and curls,” and as the fire goes
out, and the winter chill is gathering, they seek repose. “Curtained away
from the chilly night, after the revel is done,” they “float along in a
splendid dream,” which the poet recounts, and then addresses them thus:]
Oh, Maud and Madge, dream on together,
With never a pang of jealous fear!
For, ere the bitter St. Agnes weather
Shall whiten another year,
Robed for the bridal, and robed for the tomb,
Braided brown hair, and golden tress,
There’ll be only one of you left for the bloom
Of the bearded lips to press,—
Only one for the bridal pearls,
The robe of satin and Brussels lace,—
Only one to blush through her curls
At the sight of a lover’s face.
Oh, beautiful Madge, in your bridal white,
For you the revel has just begun;
But for her who sleeps in your arms to-night,
The revel of life is done!
But, robed and crowned with your saintly bliss,
Queen of heaven and bride of the sun,
Oh, beautiful Maud, you’ll never miss
The kisses another hath won!
AFTER THE WEDDING.
All alone in my room, at last;
I wonder how far they have travelled now?
They’ll be very far when the night is past;
And so would I, if I knew but how.
How lovely she looked in her wreath and dress!
She is queenlier far than the village girls;
Those were roses, too, in the wreath, I guess—
’Twas they made the crimson amongst her curls.
She’s good as beautiful, too, they say;
Her heart is as gentle as any dove’s;
She’ll be all that she can to him alway—
Dear! I am tearing my new white gloves.
How calm she is, with her saint-like face!
Her eyes are violet—mine are blue;
How careless I am with my mother’s lace!—
Her hands are whiter, and softer, too.
They’ve gone to the city beyond the hill,
They must never come back to this place again!
I’m almost afraid to be here so still;
I wish it would thunder! and lighten! and rain!
Oh, no! for some may not be abed,
Some few, perhaps, may be out to-night;
I hope that the moon will come instead,
And heaven be starry, and earth all light.
’Tis only a summer that she’s been here—
It’s been my home for seventeen years!—
But her name is a testament far and near,
And the poor have embalmed it in priceless tears.
I remember the day when another came—
There! at last, I have tied my hair—
Her curls and mine were nearly the same,
But hers are longer, and mine less fair.
They’re going across the sea, I know,
Across the ocean—will that be far?—
Did I have my comb a moment ago?
I seem to forget where my things all are.
When ships are wrecked, do the people drown?
Is there never a boat to save the crew?
Poor ships! If ever my ship goes down,
I’ll want a grave in the ocean, too.
Good-night, good-night—it is striking one!—
Good-night to bride, and good-night to groom.
The light of my candle is almost done—
I wish my bed was in mother’s room!
How calm it looks in the midnight shade—
Those curtains were hung there clean to-day:
They’re all too white for me, I’m afraid:
Perhaps I may soon be as white as they.
Dark!—all dark!—for the light is dead.
Father in heaven, may I have rest?
One hour of sleep for my weary head—
For this breaking heart in my poor, poor breast!
For his sweet sake do I kneel and pray,
O God! protect him from change and ill;
And render her worthier every way,
The older the purer, the lovelier still.
There! I knew I was going to cry;—
I have kept the tears in my soul too long:
Oh! let me say it, or I shall die,—
As heaven is witness, I mean no wrong.
He never shall hear from this secret room,
He never shall know in the after-years,
How seventeen summers of happy bloom
Fell dead, one night, in a moment of tears!
I loved him more than she understands.
For him I loaded my soul with truth;
For him I am kneeling, with lifted hands,
To lay at his feet my shattered youth!
I love, I adore him, still the same!
More than father, and mother, and life!
My hope of hopes was to bear his name—
My heaven of heavens to be his wife!
His _wife_—oh, name which the angels breathe,
Let it not crimson my cheek for shame—
’Tis her great glory that word to wreathe
In the princely heart from whose blood it came.
Oh, hush! again I behold them stand,
As they stood to-night, by the chancel wall:
I see him holding her white-gloved hand,
I hear his voice in a whisper fall.
I see the minister’s silver hair,
I see him kneel at the altar-stone,
I see him rise when the prayer is o’er,
He has taken their hands and made them one.
The fathers and mothers are standing near,
The friends are pressing to kiss the bride;
One of those kisses had birthplace here—
The dew of her lips has not yet dried.
His lips have touched hers before to-night—
Then I have a grain of his to keep!
This midnight blackness is flecked with light,
Some angel is singing my soul to sleep.
He knows full well why many a knave
So close to his lady’s lips would swim—
God only knows that the kiss I gave
Was set in her mouth to give to him!
W. L. KEESE.
THE BALLAD OF CHEVY-CHASE.
In this popular ballad, believed to have been written about the year
1600, occur these familiar stanzas:
Next day did many widows come,
Their husbands to bewail;
They washed their wounds in brinish tears,
But all would not prevail.
Their bodies, bathed in purple blood,
They bore with them away;
They kissed them dead a thousand times,
Ere they were clad in clay.
THE OLD LOVE.
I met her; she was thin and old,
She stooped, and trod with tottering feet;
Her locks were gray that once were gold,
Her voice was harsh that once was sweet;
Her cheeks were sunken, and her eyes,
Robbed of their girlish light of joy,
Were dim: I felt a strange surprise
That I had loved her when a boy.
But yet a something in her air
Restored me to my youthful prime:
My heart grew young, and seemed to wear
The impress of that long-lost time.
I took her wilted hand in mine,
Its touch awoke a ghost of joy;
I kissed her with a reverent sigh,
For I had loved her when a boy.
EARL MARCH’S DAUGHTER.
The earl, smitten with grief over his broken-hearted and dying Ellen, is
anxious to restore the lover he had exiled. But it is too late:
In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs;
Her cheek is cold as ashes;
Nor love’s own kiss shall wake those eyes
To lift their silken lashes.
CAMPBELL.
THE KING OF FRANCE’S DAUGHTER.
His pale lyppes, alas!
Twenty times she kissed,
And his face did wash
With her trickling teares;
Every gaping wound
Tenderlye she pressed,
And did wipe it round’
With her golden haires.
“Speake, faire love,” quoth shee,
“Speake, faire prince, to mee;
One sweete word of comfort give:
Lift up thy deare eyes,
Listen to my cryes,
Thinke in what sad griefe I live.”
All in vaine she sued,
All in vaine she wooed;
The prince’s life was fled and gone.
_Pepys Collection._
DYING INJUNCTION.