The word adoration is derived from kissing. It means literally to apply to the mouth. Therefore girls should beware of philologists who may ask them with seemingly harmless intent, “May I adore you?”
In kissing, as in everything else, honesty is the best policy. Stolen kisses are not the sweetest, as Leigh Hunt would have us believe. A kiss to be a kiss must be mutual, voluntary, simultaneous. “The kiss snatched hasty from the sidelong maid” is not worth having. A stolen kiss is only half a kiss.
“These poor half-kisses kill me quite;
Was ever man thus served?
Amidst an ocean of delight,
For pleasure to be starved?”—Marlowe.
HOW TO WIN LOVE
BRASS BUTTONS
Inasmuch as language is the least eloquent and effective mode of expressing Love, and inasmuch as Love is commonly inspired in woman by the possession of qualities which she lacks, it is obvious that Shakspere did not show his usual insight into human nature when he wrote—
“That man that hath a tongue is, I say, no man,