Oh, rather than I would it smother,
Were I to taste such another.
It should be my wishing
That I might die kissing.
The late George D. Prentice said he had a female correspondent who wrote “when two hearts are surcharged with love’s electricity, a kiss is the burning contract, the wild leaping flames of love’s enthusiasm.” The humorist observed that the idea was very pretty, “but a flash of electricity is altogether too brief to give a correct idea of a truly delicious kiss.” We agree with Byron that the strength of a kiss is generally measured by its length. Still, there should be a limit, and we really think that Mrs. Browning, strong-minded woman as she is, transcends all reasonable limits in her notions of a kiss’s duration. In her ‘Aurora Leigh’ she talks of a kiss
‘As long and silent as the ecstatic night.’
That, indeed, must be ‘linked sweetness’ altogether too long drawn out.
II.
How to kiss—The act fully described—Size of the mouth to be considered—Large mouths and those of the rose-bud sort—The girl who claws and struggles—Poetical directions—Dangers of hugging—Tapping the lips of a Mexican senorita—Kissing a Chinese girl—How to receive a kiss—Long-remembered kisses—The kiss in betrothal and marriage.
Having at least learned something as to the nature of a kiss, let us seek information on how to kiss. There are various general directions; the gentleman must be taller than the lady he intends to kiss. Take her right hand in yours and draw her gently to you; pass your left hand over her right shoulder, diagonally down across her back, under her left arm; press her to your bosom, at the same time she will throw her head back and you have nothing to do but lean a little forward and press your lips to hers, and then the thing is done. Don’t make a noise over it as if you were firing off shooting crackers, or pounce upon it like a hungry hawk upon an innocent dove, but gently fold the damsel in your arms without smashing her standing collar or spoiling her curls, and by a sweet pressure upon her mouth, revel in the blissfulness of your situation without smacking your lips on it as you would over a glass of beer. It might be well at the conclusion of the operation to ask the young woman if it was satisfactory, for we are never satisfied that a lady understands a kiss unless we have it from her own mouth.