A BUDGET OF FACETIÆ.
A Columbia clergyman, who, while preaching a sermon on Sunday evening, perceived a man and woman under the gallery in the act of kissing each other behind a hymn-book, did not lose his temper. No! he remained calm. He beamed mildly at the offenders over his spectacles, and when the young man kissed her the fifteenth time, he merely broke his sermon short off in the middle of “thirdly,” and offered a fervent prayer in behalf of “the young man in the pink neck-tie and the maiden in the blue bonnet and gray shawl, who were profaning the sanctuary by kissing one another in pew seventy-eight.” And the congregation said “Amen.” Then the woman pulled her veil down, and the young man sat there and swore softly to himself. He does not go to church as much now as he did.
At Boulogne, during the reception of Queen Victoria, some years ago, a number of English ladies, in their anxiety to see everything, pressed with such force against the soldiers who were keeping the line that the latter were forced to give way, and generally were—to use the expression of policemen—“hindered in the execution of their duty.” The officer in command, observing the state of affairs, called out, “One roll of the drum,—if they don’t keep back, kiss them all.” After the first sound of the drum the ladies took to flight. “If they had been French,” said a Parisian journal, “they would have remained to a woman.”
The portrait-painter, Gilbert Stuart, once met a lady in Boston, who said to him, “I have just seen your likeness, and kissed it because it was so much like you.” “And did it kiss you in return?” said he. “No,” replied the lady. “Then,” returned the gallant painter, “it was not like me.”
Mary Kyle Dallas says love-making is always awkward. “A stolen kiss, if seen, creates a laugh; a squeeze of the hand, if detected, is a great joy. I myself, who claim to be romantic, did grin at a shadow picture cast upon the wall of the white garden fence, next door, by an envious gas-light, when I saw the shadow of the young lady with much waterfall feed the shadow of the young gentleman with no whiskers with sugar-plums and then kiss it; but the shadows were very black, and took odd crinks in their noses as they moved to and fro, and that may have been the cause of my mirth.”
“Oh! your nose is as cold as ice,” a Boston father thought he heard his daughter exclaim the other evening, as he was reading in the next room. He walked in for an explanation, but the young fellow was at one end of the sofa and the girl at the other, while both looked so innocent and unconscious that the old gentleman concluded that his ears had deceived him, and so retired from the scene without a word.
A country girl, coming from a morning walk, was told that she looked as fresh as a daisy kissed by the dew, to which she innocently replied, “You’ve got my name right, Daisy; but his isn’t Dew.”
Scene at the Atlantic Telegraph office.
Fond Wife (to telegraph-operator). “Oh, sir! I want to send a kiss to my husband in Liverpool. How can I do it?”
Obliging Operator. “Easiest thing in the world, ma’am. You’ve got to give it to me with ten dollars, and I’ll transmit it right away.”
Fond Wife. “If that’s the case, the directors ought to put much younger and handsomer men in your position.”
(Operator’s indignation is great.)
A young lady of Cincinnati, who had just returned from completing her education in Boston, wanted to kiss her lover, but her mother objected. The daughter drew up her queenly form to its full height, and exclaimed, “Mother, terrible, tragical, and sublimely retributive will be the course pursued by me, if you refuse to allow him to place his alabaster lips to mine, and enrapture my immortal soul by imprinting angelic sensations of divine bliss upon the indispensable members of my human physiognomy, and then kindly allowing me to take a withdrawal from his beneficent presence.” The mother feebly admitted that her objections were overruled.
Mabel. “Yes! that young man is very fond of kissing.”
Mater. “Mabel, who ever told you such nonsense?”
Mabel. “I had it from his own lips!”
A Yale student, who is evidently in the “journalistic” department, writes a twelve-verse poem which is entitled, “We kissed each other by the sea.” “Well, what of it?” asks a Western journalist: “the seaside is no better for such practices than any other locality. In fact, we have put in some very sweet work of that kind on the tow-path of a canal in our time, but did not say anything about it in print.”
The tender young poet who began, “I kissed her under the silent stars,” and whom the newspaper to which he sent the poem represented as beginning, “I kicked her under the cellar-stairs,” appeared before the editors and publishers assembled in convention at Lockport, New York, and preferred the request that the name of the room from which typographical errors emanate might be changed forthwith. He wants it called the discomposing room.
A young lady of Atlanta says there is no woman living who could interest her with a lecture on “kisses.” She says that she can get more satisfaction from the lips of a young man, on a moonlight night, than a woman could tell in a thousand years. That young lady is posted.
A teacher in De Witt County has introduced a new feature in his school. When one of the girls misses a word, the boy who spells it gets permission to kiss her. The result is that the girls are fast forgetting what they ever knew about spelling, while the boys are improving with wonderful rapidity.
“Gracious heavens!” exclaimed Mrs. Marrowfat, dropping the paper from her nerveless grasp, and leaning back in her chair with an expression of blank astonishment on her countenance, “Gracious heavens, Miltiades, what a ‘paroxysmal kiss’?” Mr. Marrowfat, assuming a very serious aspect, observed, “A ‘paroxysmal kiss,’ my love, is a kiss buttered with soul-lightning.”
“Ma, has aunty got bees in her mouth?” “No; why do you ask such a question?” “’Cause that leetle man with a heap o’ hair on his face cotched hold of her, and said he was going to take the honey from her lips; and she said, ‘Well, make haste!’”
A young lady who was rebuked by her mother for kissing her intended justified the act by quoting the passage, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”
A married man in New Hampshire is said to have adopted an original method of economy. One morning, recently, when he knew his wife would see him, he kissed the servant-girl. The house-expenses were instantly reduced three hundred dollars per year.
“Kissing your sweetheart,” says a trifling young man, “is like eating soup with a fork: it takes a long time to get enough.”
I saw Esau kissing Kate,
And the fact is we all three saw;
For I saw Esau, he saw me,
And she saw I saw Esau.
Bus—to kiss. Re-bus—to kiss again. Blunderbus—two girls kissing each other. Omnibus—to kiss all the girls in the room. Bus-ter—a general kisser. E pluri-bus unum—a thousand kisses in one.
An editor defines a blunderbuss as kissing the wrong girl,—just as though it were possible to be wrong in kissing any girl. A blunderbuss is for men to kiss one another, as Frenchmen do, or for girls to kiss one another, as they often do for want of a man to kiss them.
A young fellow in San Francisco suddenly snatched a kiss from a lady friend, and excused his conduct by saying that it was a sort of temporary insanity that now and then came upon him. When he arose to take his leave the pitying damsel said to him, “If you ever feel any more such fits coming on, you had better come right here, where your infirmity is known, and we will take care of you.”
This story is told of an English barrister on his travels. As the coach was about to start after breakfast, the modest limb of the law approached the landlady, a pretty Quakeress, who was seated near the fire, and said he could not think of going without first giving her a kiss. “Friend,” said she, “thee must not do it.” “Oh, by heavens, I will!” replied the barrister. “Well, friend, as thou hast sworn, thee may do it; but thee must not make a practice of it.”
Here is an episode from a Palais Royal farce. A. is making love to C., who is B.’s wife, and scents B.’s coat with musk. A. is on the point of kissing C., when he smells mischief in the air. She waits, expectant of the embrace; he turns up his nose, snuffs, and changes the tone of his remark. Tableaux!
The electrical kiss is performed by means of the electrical stool. Let a lady challenge a gentleman not acquainted with the experiment to give her a salute. The lady thereupon mounts the glass stool, taking hold of the chain connected with the prime conductor. The machine then being set in motion, the gentleman approaches the lady and attempts to imprint the seal of affection upon her coral lips, when a spark will fly in his face which effectually checkmates his intentions.
Some of the young men who go to see the girls have adopted a new way of obtaining kisses. They assert, on the authority of scientific writers, that the concussion produced by a kiss will cause the flame of a gas-jet to flicker, and they easily induce the girls to experiment in the interest of science. At the first kiss or two the parties watch the flame to see it flicker, but they soon become so interested in the experiments as to let It flicker if it wants to. Try it yourself.
Nilsson is not above resorting to the little tricks of the stage, when she thinks they will serve her purpose. A correspondent of the “Arcadian” says, “One night, at the ‘Italiens’ in Paris, she actually sent a man up to the top proscenium-box with a quantity of common wall-flowers, which he was to throw down upon the stage at a given moment. Imagine what a lovely scene this produced. How sweet and simple was this tribute of the poor to the august Diva! How pretty it was to see her pick up the common wall-flowers and kiss them, and then lift her eyes up to the gallery in sign of eternal gratitude to the gods!”
“Mary, why did you kiss your hand to the gentleman opposite, this morning?” said a careful mother to her blooming daughter. “Why, the gentleman had the impudence to throw a kiss clear across the street, and, of course, I threw it back indignantly! You wouldn’t have encouraged him by keeping it, would you?”
A beautiful girl stepped into a shop to buy a pair of mittens. “How much are they?” said she. “Why,” said the gallant but impudent clerk, lost in gazing upon the sparkling eyes and ruby lips, “you shall have them for a kiss.” “Very well,” said the lady, pocketing the mittens, while her eyes spoke daggers; “and, as I see you give credit here, charge it on your books, and let me know when you collect it.” And she very hastily tripped out.
A lady residing in Lansingburg hailed a passing car, with her little son, to see him safely on the horse-car for a trip to Troy. He stepped on board and scrambled for the front of the car. As he was going, his mother said, “Why, aren’t you going to kiss your mother before you go?” The little fellow was so delighted at the prospect of a ride, and in such a hurry, that he hastily rejoined, looking back excitedly, “Mr. Conductor, won’t you kiss mother for me?” And of course the passengers couldn’t keep from smiling.
“My dear,” said an affectionate wife, “what shall we have for dinner to-day?” “One of your smiles,” replied the husband; “I can dine on that every day.” “But I can’t,” replied the wife. “Then take this,” and he gave her a kiss, and went to his business. He returned to dinner. “This is excellent steak,” said he: “what did you pay for it?” “Why, what you gave me this morning, to be sure,” replied the wife. “You did!” exclaimed he; “then you shall have the money next time you go to market.”
The author of the old comedy called “The Kiss” sent a copy, as soon as published, to a young lady, informing her that he had been wishing for several months for the opportunity of giving her a kiss.
Joseph II., Emperor of Germany, during a visit to Rome, went to see the princess Santacroce, a young lady of singular beauty, who had an evening conversazione. Next morning appeared the following pasquinade: “Pasquin asks, ‘What is the Emperor Joseph come to Rome for?’ Marforio answers, ‘Abaciar la Santa Croce’”—to kiss the Holy Cross.
When the court of France waited upon the king on the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, all were welcomed to kiss the royal hand. The Marquis of Spinola, in the ardor of respect, bit his majesty’s finger, on which the king started, when Spinola begged pardon, and said in his defence that if he had not done so his majesty would not have noticed him.
“Our professor does wonderful things in surgery,” said a young medical student: “he has actually made a new lip for a boy, taken from his cheek.” “Ah, well,” said his old aunt, “many’s the time I have known a pair taken from mine, and no very painful operation either.”
An engaged young gentleman got rather neatly out of a scrape with his intended. She taxed him with having kissed two young ladies at some party at which she was not present. He owned it, but said that their united ages only made twenty-one. The simple-minded girl thought of ten and eleven, and laughed off her pout. He did not explain that one was nineteen and the other two years of age! Wasn’t it artful? Just like the men!
“Pray, Miss Primrose, do you like steamboats?” inquired a gentleman of a fair friend to whom he was paying his addresses. “Oh! pretty well,” replied the lady; “but I’m exceedingly fond of a smack.” The lover took the hint, and impressed a chaste salute on the lips of the blushing damsel.
“Yes, you may come again next Sunday evening, Horace dear, but”—and she hesitated. “What is it, darling? Have I given you pain?” he asked, as she still remained silent. “You didn’t mean to, I’m sure,” she responded, “but next time please don’t wear one of those collars with the points turning outward; they scratch so.”
“Come, my little fellow,” said a Washington gentleman to a youngster of five years while sitting in a parlor where a large company were assembled, “do you know me?” “Yeth, thir!” “Who am I? Let me hear.” “You ith the man who kithed mamma when papa wath in New York.” Correct.
Little Katie, standing on a chair before a mirror, and holding her mother’s elegant hat upon her head, remarks to her father, who is sitting tête-à-tête with her mother, “Oh, papa, now I know why mamma gets so many kisses from your cousin Tom; it’s because of the pretty hat she wears. Don’t I look tempting, though?”
A Milwaukee man hid in a public door-way, and jumped out and kissed his wife. She didn’t whoop and yell, as he expected, but remarked, “Don’t be so bold, mister: folks around here know me.”
Mrs. Laing, an Omaha woman, glided softly up behind Kalakaua, King of the Sandwich Islands, and—stole a kiss! But the joke of the thing is that the Omaha wags passed off a good-looking negro for the king.
A Binghamton girl offered to let a countryman kiss her for five cents. “Gad,” exclaimed the bucolic youth, “that’s darn cheap, if a fellow only had the money.”
A New Orleans minister recently married a colored couple, and at the conclusion of the ceremony remarked, “On such occasions as this it is customary to kiss the bride, but in this case we will omit it.” To this unclerical remark the indignant bridegroom very pertinently replied, “On such an occasion as this it is customary to give the minister ten dollars, but in this case we will omit it.”
The accomplished Fitzwiggle propounded this conundrum to the lovely Miss Sparrowgrass: “What would you be, dearest, if I should press the stamp of love upon those sealing-wax lips?” “I,” responded the fairy-like creature, “should be stationery.”
Walt Whitman thus used the poetic license in his salute to the White House bride, the daughter of President Grant, upon the occasion of her marriage:
“O youth and health! O sweet Missouri rose! O bonny bride!
Yield thy red cheeks, thy lips to-day,
Unto a nation’s loving kiss.”
It was considered, doubtful whether such wholesale osculation would be satisfactory. Yet, at the same time, the gifted actress, Clara Morris, upon meeting with an enthusiastic reception in Cleveland, her home, concluded a speech of grateful appreciation with the tantalizing wish that Cleveland “had but one mouth, that she might kiss it.”[29]
A party of ladies and gentlemen, on a tour of inspection through Durham Castle, were escorted by an elderly female of a sour, solemn, and dignified aspect. In the course of their peregrinations they came to the tapestry for which the castle is famed. “These,” said the guide, in true showman style, flavored with a dash of piety to suit the subject, and pointing to several groups of figures upon the tapestry, “these represent scenes in the life of Jacob.” “Oh, yes,—how pretty!” said a young lady; and, with a laugh, pointing to two figures in somewhat close proximity, she continued, “I suppose that is Jacob kissing Rachel?” “No, madam,” responded the indignant guide, with crushing dignity, “that is Jacob wrestling with the angel.” Amid a general smile the young lady subsided, and offered no further expository remarks, but groaned under a sense of unworthiness during the rest of the visit.
A Carson (California) editor thus speaks of “Climatic Influences:”
Last evening, after the dusky shadows of night had cast a mantle over this part of the mundane sphere, we strolled out upon one of Carson’s beautifully shaded avenues for a walk. While pondering upon the uncertainty of everything human, we came suddenly upon two persons, both of whom were not of the same gender, standing one upon either side of a gate, which seemed to require a pressure of forty pounds to the square inch to keep it from falling; but, strange to say, it remained upright when they separated at our approach. Further on we came in sight of a kind young man who was assisting a poor lame girl with his arm around her waist. Not wishing to investigate the matter further, we turned into the next cross-street, but had not proceeded more than a block when we heard a sweet voice exclaim:
“Ed, if you kiss me again, I’ll call ma.”
Thinking how such things could be, we returned to our sanctum, where reference to the “Chronicle” of yesterday explains it. It is all in the climate, you know.
Mr. S. S. Cox, in his illustrations of American humor, refers to the newspaper fashion of giving a comic account of a catastrophe, and then, by a sudden and serious turn, leaving a suggestive hiatus, making a conclusion which connects the premises. Among the examples given is this one:
Mr. Jones was observed by his wife through the window to kiss the cook in the kitchen. Comment: “Mr. Jones did not go out of the house for several days, and yet there was no snow-storm.”
“I say, Mr. Smithers,” said Mrs. Smithers to her husband, “didn’t I hear you down in the kitchen kissing the cook?” “My dear,” replied Smithers, blandly, “permit me to insist upon my right to be reasonably ignorant. I really cannot say what you may have heard.” “But wasn’t you down there kissing the cook?” “My dear, I cannot really recollect. I only remember going into the kitchen and coming out again. I may have been there, and from what you say I infer I was. But I cannot recollect just what occurred.” “But,” persisted the ruthless cross-examiner, “what did Jane mean when she said, ‘Oh! Smithers, don’t kiss so loud, or the old she-dragon up-stairs will hear us’?” “Well,” said Smithers, in his blandest tones, “I cannot remember what interpretation I did put on the words at the time. They are not my words, you must remember.”
A Milwaukee chap kissed his girl forty times right straight along, and when he stopped the tears came into her eyes, and she said, in a sad tone of voice, “Ah, John, I fear you have ceased to love me.” “No, I haven’t,” replied John, “but I must breathe.”
A new design for an upholstered front gate seems destined to become popular. The foot-board is cushioned, and there is a warm soap-stone on each side, the inside step being adjustable, so that a short girl can bring her lips to the line of any given moustache without trouble. If the gate is occupied at half-past ten P.M., an iron hand extends from one gate-post, takes the young man by the left ear, turns him around, and he is at once started home by a steel foot.
A man who has been travelling in the “far West” says that when an Idaho girl is kissed, she indignantly exclaims, “Now put that right back where you took it from!”
At a recent wedding in Ohio, the minister was about to salute the bride, when she stayed him with, “No, mister, I give up them wanities now.”
A Maryland editor, on the subject of kissing, says, “The custom is an old one, and no written description can do it justice; to be fully understood and appreciated it must be handed down from mouth to mouth.”
“Stay,” he said, his right arm around her waist and her face expectantly turned to him, “shall it be the kiss pathetic, sympathetic, graphic, paragraphic, Oriental, intellectual, paroxysmal, quick and dismal, slow and unctuous, long and tedious, devotional, or what?” She said perhaps that would be the better way.
Reference having been made to the basial diversities mentioned in the Bible, it was incidentally remarked that there is another kind of kiss which young ladies receive on the sofa in the parlor after the gas is turned low, which the Scriptures don’t mention,—nor the young ladies either.
An Indiana editor advises people against using a hard pencil, and goes on to tell why. His wife desired him to write a note to a lady, inviting her to meet a party of friends at her house. After “Hubby” had done as his wife desired, and started to post the note, she saw on another piece of paper an impression of what he had written. It was:
“Sweet Mattie—Effie desires your company on Wednesday, to meet the Smithsons. Don’t fail to come; and, my darling, I shall have the happiness of a long walk home with you, and a sweet good-night kiss. I dare not see you often, or my all-consuming love would betray us both. But, Mattie dear, don’t fail to come.”
Harriet McEwen Kimball is responsible for this description of a paroxysmal kiss:
“Only the roses will hear;
Dear,
Only the roses will see!
This once—just this!
Ah, the roses, I wis,
They envy me!”
That kiss was clearly sub rosa.
The incongruities in the repetitious mode of singing hymns are shown in such illustrations as these: “Send down salvation from on high” became “Send down sal-.” A soprano in one case sang “Oh for a man,” and the chorus responded, “Oh for a mansion in the skies.” In another case the soprano modestly sang, “Teach me to kiss;” the alto took up the strain, “Teach me to kiss;” while the bass rendered it quite prosaic by singing, “Teach me to kiss the rod.”
“Punch” publishes the following from its sensational reporter: An appalling tragedy in domestic life has lately scattered consternation in the neighborhood of Bayswater. A newly-married couple, in possession of ample fortune, and moving, it is rumored, in extremely good society, had been observed to live together upon very loving terms, and no suspicion as to their affection was entertained among their friends. It appears, however, that on Monday morning last the young husband left his wife in considerable agitation, having, as he alleged, some business in the city. It has since transpired that he had previously secured himself a stall at Drury Lane for Salvini in “Othello;” and there seems reason to believe that the tragical event which subsequently happened was first suggested to his mind by this most masterly performance. It was noticed by the footman that he did not return until a few minutes before his usual dinner-hour, when, rushing in abruptly, without one word of warning, he proceeded to the bed-chamber where his wife was in the act of dressing for the evening, and before her startled maid could even scream for help, he caught his wife up in his arms in a frenzy of excitement and deliberately proceeded to smother her—with kisses!
In that very amusing sketch, “Johnny Beedle’s Courtship,” occurs the following droll scene:
“It is a good sign to find a girl sulky. I knew where the shoe pinched: it was that ’are Patty Bean business. So I went to work to persuade her that I had never had any notion after Patty, and, to prove it, I fell to running her down at a great rate. Sally could not help chiming in with me; and I rather guess Miss Patty suffered a few. I now not only got hold of her hand without opposition, but managed to slip my arm round her waist. But there was no satisfying me; so I must go to poking out my lips after a kiss. I guess I rued it. She fetched me a slap in the face that made me see stars, and my ears rung like a brass kettle for a quarter of an hour. I was forced to laugh at the joke, though out of the wrong side of my mouth, which gave my face something the look of a gridiron. The battle now began in the regular way.
“‘Come, Sally, give me a kiss, and ha’ done with it now?’
“‘I won’t! so there, you’—
“‘I’ll take it, whether or no.’
“‘Do it, if you dare!’
“And at it we went, rough and tumble. An odd destruction of starch now commenced; the bow of my cravat was squat up in half a shake. At the next bout, smash went shirt-collar; and at the same time some of the head-fastenings gave way, and down came Sally’s hair in a flood like a mill-dam let loose, carrying away half a dozen combs. One dig of Sally’s elbow, and my blooming ruffles wilted down to a dish-cloth. But she had no time to boast. Soon her neck-tackling began to shiver; it parted at the throat, and away came a lot of blue and white beads, scampering and running races every which way about the floor.
“By the hookey, if Sally Jones is not real grit, there is no snakes. She fought fair, however, I must own, and neither tried to bite or scratch; and when she could fight no longer she yielded handsomely. Her arms fell down by her sides, her head back over her chair, her eyes closed, and there lay her plump little mouth, all in the air. Lord, did ye ever see a hawk pounce upon a young robin, or a bumble-bee upon a clover-top? I say nothing.
“Consarn it, how a buss will crack of a still frosty night! Mrs. Jones was about half-way between asleep and awake.
“‘There goes my yeast-bottle,’ says she to herself, ‘bust into twenty hundred pieces, and my bread is all dough again.’”
In “The Tour of Dr. Syntax,” Combe gives us the following amusing passages:
Squire. This, Doctor Syntax, is my sister;
Why, my good sir, you have not kissed her.
Syntax. Do not suppose I’m such a brute
As to disdain the sweet salute.
Squire. And this, sir, is my loving wife,
The joy and honor of my life.
Syntax. A lovely lady to the view!
And with your leave, I’ll kiss her too.
...
With heart of joy and look of woe,
The Doctor now prepared to go;
He silent squeezed the Squire’s hands,
And asked of madam her commands.
The Squire exclaimed, “Why so remiss?
She bids you take a hearty kiss;
And if you think that one won’t do,
I beg, dear sir, you’ll give her two.”
“Nay, then,” said Syntax, “you shall see!”
And straight he gave the lady three.
The lady, blushing, thanked him too,
And in soft accents said, “Adieu.”