But “yes” ’s a word I will not say,
Nor will I either answer “nay.”
W. F. H.
There is a saying in Jutland that runs thus: “Maren, may I kiss you?—Guess. You won’t then, I suppose?—Guess once more? You will?—But how could you guess it then?” This tallies capitally with the following German saying: “Zwinge mich, so thu’ ich keine Sünde,” sagte das Mädchen (“Constrain me, so that I shall not commit sin,” said the maiden). Naturally in this case, there can be no question of any crimen osculationis, for, as the jurists have it, volenti non fit injuria.
Let us finally examine all these kisses from an ethical standpoint. We have all of us, you know, learnt from our earliest childhood that—
He who kisses maidens hath
A very naughty habit;
W. F. H.
and popular belief adds, by way of warning, that it causes sores on the mouth. Ah, yes, that is certainly very true, but what becomes of our childish lore in the main when we attain to somewhat riper age? Now, only listen to the ballad about what happened in the case of the young Serb, in spite of all he had learnt:
Here, so people told us,
Dwells a youth industrious,
Who from ancient volumes
Late and early studies.
As for books they tell us:
Don’t vault on the saddle,
Buckle not thy sword on,
Drink no wine that fuddles,
Never kiss a maiden.
But the young man harkens
Not to what they tell him:
Keenest sword he seizes,
Hottest wine he drinketh,
Fairest maids he kisses.
W. F. H.
When so learned a man as our Serb succumbs to the tempting kiss, what is to be said then about all the rest who are less instructed? And let us remember ere we sit in judgment on any one—and it ought to be regarded as peculiarly extenuating circumstances—that a woman’s mouth is a direct incentive to kissing, that it is formed, as you know, for that purpose, asserts an old troubadour, and created to kiss and smile:—
And when I gazed upon her red mouth sweet,
To match whose charms not Jove himself were meet,
That mouth for laughter and for kisses framed,
I fell thereof so amorous straightway
That I lacked power to do aught or to say.
W. F. H.