Our whole life, lived in love to our neighbour and nature, is nothing more than one long kiss.
Kaalund somewhere says:
A babe was I not long ere this,
But time too swiftly slips;
And that is why I press a kiss
So warmly on life’s lips.
W. F. H.
A similar figurative use is extraordinarily common with the poets. H. C. Andersen, in Goose-grass, says of the lark that it flies past the tulip and other aristocratic flowers only to light on the sward by the humble goose-grass, which it kisses with its beak, and for which it sings its joyous song. The other poets represent the waves as kissing the white beach, the bees, the scented flowers; and the ears of corn in the fields as heaving beneath the warm kisses of the sun’s golden rays. The sun’s kisses are oscula sancta; every creature shares in them, for they are the most beautiful expression of God’s love. Ingemann sings in a morning hymn:
The sun looks down on hut and hall,
On haughty king and beggar weeping,
Beholds the great ones and the small,
And kisses babes in cradles sleeping.
W. F. H.
VIII
THE ORIGIN OF KISSING
Les coutumes, quelque étranges qu’elles deviennent parfois à la longue, ont généralement des commencements très simples.
Max Müller.
Usages, however strange they may sometimes become in the long run, have generally very simple beginnings.—Translated from the above.