There is a proverb which says: “When gorse is out of blossom, kissing is out of favor;” and gorse blossoms always, year in and year out. This matter of countless kisses has been the theme of many a poet. Catullus averred that though his crop of kissing were thicker than the dry ears of the corn-field, he would not have enough. Another ancient poet starts off with a thousand kisses, adds a hundred thousand, repeats the process (in rhyme, of course) twice, and urges that he and his sweetheart shall purposely confuse their memories as to the number and begin all over again. Another poet wants kisses equal in number as the grains of sand on the seashore, as the stars in the heavens. Kisses told by hundreds o’er, Thousands told by thousands more, Millions, countless millions, then, Told by millions o’er again; Countless as the drops that glide In the ocean’s billowy tide, Countless as yon orbs of light Spangled o’er the vault of night, I’ll with ceaseless love bestow On those cheeks of crimson glow, On those lips so gently swelling, On those eyes such fond tales telling. The poet exclaims that love was never satisfied with numbers, and argues that no one would dream of counting each blade of grass, each ear of ripening grain, or to a scanty hundred would confine the clustering bunches of grapes. Who would ask for a thousand bees and no more, or regulate the number of rain-drops that should fall on some parched pasture-land? One of our modern poets, John G. Saxe, has expressed this ancient desire, and from much of our modern poetry we should imagine the sentiment was still in favor: Give me kisses—do not stay Counting in that careful way; All the coins your lips can print Never will exhaust the mint. Kiss me, then, Every moment—and again. Old Ben Jonson said that it would be his wish that he might die kissing, and it is said so grave a philosopher as John Ruskin once invited a young lady to kiss him—“not sometimes, but continually.” A young lady reading in a newspaper of a girl having been made crazy by a sudden kiss, called the attention of her uncle, who was in the room, to that singular occurrence, whereupon the old gentleman gruffly demanded what the fool had gone crazy for. “What did she go crazy for?” archly asked the ingenuous maiden; “why, for more, I suppose.” And, in rhyme, we have the same sentiment.