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.