From a sentimental point of view, the most objectionable of modern kisses are those which are allowed between cousins. As long as a man may become a suitor for the hand of his cousin he should, both for the sake of his own love-drama and in justice to a possible rival, be debarred from this privilege. Imagine the feelings of a lover who knows that his rival has been permitted to steal the virgin kiss from the lips of his adored one simply because his father happens to be her uncle! Family kisses should, therefore, be allowed only within that degree of relationship which precludes the idea of Love and marriage. Cousins will have to be satisfied in future with a warmer grasp of the hand and an extra lump of sugar in a maiden’s smile. LOVE-KISSES The happiest moment in the life of the happiest man is that when he is allowed for the first time to “steal immortal blessing” from the lips of her who has just promised to be his for ever. No wonder the poets have grown eloquent over this supreme moment of pre-heavenly rapture— TENNYSON— “O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.” MOORE— “Grow to my lips thou sacred kiss.” SHAKSPERE— “As if he plucked up kisses by the root That grew upon my lips.” RÜCKERT— “Meine Liebste, mit den frommen treuen Braunen Rehesaugen, sagt, sie habe Blaue einst als Kind gehabt. Ich glaub’es. Neulich da ich, seliges Vergessen Trinkend hing an ihren Lippen, Meine Augen unterm langen Kusse Oeffnend, schaut’ ich in die nahen ihren, Und sie kamen mir in solcher Nähe Tiefblau wie ein Himmel vor. Was ist das Wer gibt dir der Kindheit Augen wieder? Deine Liebe, sprach sie, deine Liebe, Die mich hat zum Kind gemacht, die alle Liebesunschuldsträume meiner Kindheit Hat gereift zu sel’ger Erfüllung. Soll der Himmel nicht, der mir im Herzen Steht durch dich, mir blau durch’s Auge blicken?” Love-kisses are silent like deep affection— “Passions are likened best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.”—RALEIGH. True, Petruchio kissed Katrina “with such a clamorous smack, that at the parting all the church did echo”; but his object was not to express his Love, but to tease and tame the shrew. Loud kisses, moreover, might betray the lovers to profane ears, and bring on a fatal attack of Coyness on the girl’s part— “The greatest sin ’twixt heaven and hell Is first to kiss and then to tell.” Love-kisses are passionate and long; for Love is Cupid’s lip-cement— “Oh, a kiss, long as my exile, Sweet as my revenge.”—SHAKSPERE.