¿Porque un beso me has dado Riñe tu madre? Toma, niña, tu beso; Dile que calle. Marot has treated the same subject in his epigram _Le Baiser Volé_, or the Stolen Kiss. About my daring now you grieve, To snatch a kiss without ado, Nor even saying, “By your leave.” Come, I will make my peace with you, And now I want you to believe I’m loth your soul again to grieve By theft of kisses, since, alack, My kiss has wrought such dole and teen; Yet ’tis not lost; I’ll give it back, And that right blithely, too, I ween. W. F. H. There is a French anecdote of the present day about a student who took the liberty of kissing a young girl. She got very angry, however, and called him an insolent puppy, whereupon he retorted with irrefutable logic: _Pour Dieu! Mademoiselle ne vous fâchez pas, si ce baiser vous gêne, rendez-le-moi_ (For goodness’ sake, don’t be cross, young lady. If that kiss annoys you, give it back to me). It seems to have had a more amicable settlement in the case of a Danish couple who had resolved to break off their engagement: “It is best, I suppose, that we return each other’s letters?” said he. “I think so too,” replied she, “but shall we not at the same time give each other all our kisses back?” They did so, and thus agreed to renew their engagement. This little story shows us that a kiss is something which cannot be so easily lost, and I hope, not least for the sake of my book, that we shall concur in the Italian proverb which says: _Bacio dato non e mai perduto_ (a kiss once given is never lost). II LOVE KISSES A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love And beauty, all concentrating like rays Into one focus, kindled from above; Such kisses as belong to early days, Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move, And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze, Each kiss a heart-quake,--for a kiss’s strength I think, it must be reckon’d by its length. BYRON. CHAPTER II LOVE KISSES “At the time of the world’s creation kisses were created and cruel love.” Thus begins a Cypriot folk-song, and it is assuredly without the shadow of a doubt that among all nations which on the whole know kissing, it gets its sublimest meaning as the expression of love. In the transport of love the lovers’ lips seek each other. When Byron’s Don Juan wanders one evening along the shore with his Haidee, they glance at the moonlit sea which lies outspread before them, and they listen to the lapping of the waves and the whispering murmur of the breeze, but suddenly they Saw each other’s dark eyes darting light Into each other--and, beholding this, Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss. * * * * *