In Europe, at least, we no longer kiss the ground before the feet of the mighty, any more than we salute them by kissing their hands or feet; a bow more or less gracious, according to circumstances, serves the same purpose generally. Nevertheless, at certain courts, such as the Spanish, English, and Russian, kissing the hand is still customary as a sort of ceremonial salutation; but its practice is usually confined to certain solemn occasions.
Individuals of princely rank excepted, the kiss of respect to superiors is to be regarded as all but extinct; but even in the eighteenth century, kissing the hem of their garments is mentioned as a salutation befitting ladies of exalted rank, and in Holberg’s Politiske Kandestøber (the Political Pewterer), we see how Madame Abrahamsen and Madame Sanderus even kissed Gedske on the apron.
Kissing, as expressive of admiration, still undoubtedly occurs, but can scarcely be said to be particularly general; it becomes less and less common as we approach our own time.
A half-ironical instance occurs in Molière; in Les Femmes Savantes Armande and Philaminte fall into raptures over Vadius’ great learning. Du grec! O ciel! du grec! Il sait du grec, ma sœur! (Greek! good heavens! Greek! He knows Greek, sister), says the one, and the other answers: Du grec! quelle douceur! (Greek! how sweet!). In their boundless enthusiasm they ask Vadius to let them kiss him as a mark of their admiration. He accepts this salutation very politely, if not with any particularly great joy; but when he turns to young Henriette, from whose lips he is especially desirous of receiving so tender an expression of admiration, she rejects him quite abruptly with the remark: Excusez-moi, monsieur, je n’entends pas le Grec (Excuse me, sir, I don’t understand Greek).
The pedantic Vadius got just what he deserved—a kiss as dry as dust from two middle-aged, sexless blue-stockings, which nobody begrudges him. On the other hand, many, perhaps, will read with envy of the homage received by Benjamin Franklin at the French Court. Mme. de Campan, in her Mémoires, says: “At one of the splendid entertainments given in Franklin’s honour, I saw how the most beautiful of the three hundred ladies present was chosen to place a laurel crown on the white locks of the American philosopher and imprint a kiss on each of the old man’s cheeks.”
The kiss of admiration and respect has, I suppose, been the longest to survive in the form of kissing ladies’ hands. Formerly, in many countries, it constituted a friendly greeting on meeting a lady or saying good-bye to her; but nowadays this custom has grown obsolete in most places; nevertheless we have certain literary reminiscences of it. In Austria people say Küss die Hand, gnädige Frau, and Sârut mâna in Roumania, but still it is comparatively rare that this expression is followed by actual kisses, as was formerly the case. Je vous baise les mains is now only used in an ironical sense in France. Ceremonial kisses, however, still flourish in Spain to a marked degree, not only in the language of the Court, but also in general conversation. When I was first presented to a Spanish lady I expressed my gladness at making her acquaintance by kissing her hand—only, however, by figure of speech—but her husband at once pointed out to me in a laughing way, that I had failed to show her proper respect. One can only kiss a Spanish lady’s feet: Beso à usted los pies or à los pies de usted (I kiss your feet), as they say.
Before leaving the subject of the kiss reverential I will mention two different ways in which it has been used. Formerly it was the custom, at least at the French Court, for pages to first kiss the articles they were to hand to distinguished personages. Henri Estienne tells an anecdote about a page who had to carry a letter to the Princess of Naples. It was expressly enjoined on him to kiss it (baisez-la), but the page pretended he had misunderstood the words, so when he had to leave the letter he first kissed the unsuspecting princess.
We find another peculiar form of the kiss reverential in the cases when a person kisses his own hand before offering it to the guest he would especially honour, or before accepting a present for which he wishes to show his gratitude in an extraordinarily polite manner.[A]
In an old comedy of Marivaux, “Harlequin poli par l’Amour,” a fairy falls in love with a rustic lout. She carries him off, entertains him in her castle, and tries in every possible way to gain his love; but he remains utterly callous to all her blandishments, and behaves all the time in a most foolish manner. He takes a fancy to a valuable ring the fairy is wearing; she removes it from her finger and gives it to him, but when he scarcely says “Thank you” for it, she says to chide him: Mon cher Arlequin, un beau garçon comme vous, quand une dame lui présente quelque chose, doit baiser la main en la reçevant.[20] Arlequin takes hold of the fairy’s hand and kisses it; but she corrects him again, and says: “He does not understand me once, but I like his mistake. It is your own hand, you know, that you should kiss.”[21]
This usage still prevails amongst old peasants in Jutland, and is termed receiving something with “kissed hand,” or “kiss hand.” The expression Kusshand is also employed in German, and is explained thus: “Gruss, wobei man die eigne Hand küsst und dann nach der zu grüssenden Person hin bewegt oder sie reicht.” The same sort of greeting is found both in England and France. Voltaire tells us that children in certain countries are taught to kiss their right hand when anybody gives them something good. Even at the present day, in certain places on the Alps, peasants express their thanks by kissing their hand before taking what is given to them.