I
WHAT IS A KISS?
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS A KISS?
It may perhaps seem somewhat futile to begin with discussing what a kiss is: that every child of course knows. We are greeted with kisses directly we enter the world, and kisses follow us all our life long, as Hölty sings—
Giving kisses, snatching kisses,
Keeps the busy world employed.
W. F. H.
Nevertheless the question is not altogether superfluous. It seems to me even to offer certain points of interest, inasmuch as it is by no means so easy as people may imagine to define what a kiss is. If we turn to the poets we are often put off with the answer that a kiss is something that should be merely felt, and that people would do well to refrain from speculating as to what it actually is.
What says this glance? What meaning lurks in this
Squeezing of hands, embrace, and ling’ring kiss?
This only can your heart explain to you.
What have such matters with the brain to do?
W. F. H.