In the first place we must investigate the kiss in its gustative aspect. I here confine myself to what Kierkegaard calls “the perfect kiss,” _i.e._, the kiss between man and woman; kisses between men are, according to that authority, insipid. _Küssen, wo smekt dat? see de maid._ Yes, its taste naturally depends entirely on the circumstances, and experience is here a teacher that sets every theory at nought; but a few leading features may, however, be indicated. When Lars Iversen, in Schandorph’s _Skovfogedbørnene_, has kissed Mette Splyd, he wipes his mouth and says, when he has got well outside the door, “That tasted like meat that has been kept too long.” When the old minnesinger, King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, had kissed his sweetheart he sang: “Just as a rose that opens its calix when it drinks the sweet dew, she offered me her sugar-sweet red mouth.” Recht als ein rôse diu sich ûz ir klôsen lât, Swenn si des süezen touwes gert, Sus bòt si mir ir zuckersüezen ròten munt. As we perceive from both these examples, there is a great distinction between kisses in their gustative aspect, but, for obvious reasons, I shall entirely exclude the variety represented by Mette Splyd. The most frequently employed and, at the same time undoubtedly the most fitting epithet of a kiss, is that it is sweet. The shepherd in the French pastorals is fond of asking for a sweet kiss (_un doux baiser_), and poets innumerable, like Wenceslaus, have sung about the beloved’s sugar mouth. During the Renaissance such expressions as her _bouche sucrine_ (sugary mouth) and _bouche pleine de sucre et d’ambregris_ (mouth full of sugar and ambergris) were often employed. We find this further borne out by two Latin epigrams. One asks:--“What is sweeter than mead?” and the answer runs: “The dew of heaven. And what is sweeter than dew?--Honey from Hybla? What is sweeter than honey?--Nectar. Than nectar?--A kiss.” Quid mulso præstat? Ros cœli. Rore quid? Hyblæ Mel. Melle hoc? Nectar. Nectare? Suaviolum. The second epigram goes through a similar string of comparisons, and arrives at the same result: “What is better than sugar?--Honey-cake. Than honey-cake?--The flavour of honey-combs. Than this flavour?--Dewy kisses”-- Saccharo quid superat? Libum. Quid libo? Favorum Gustus. At hunc gustum? Basia roscidula. Kisses are sweet as woman’s gentle breath, which, according to a Roumanian folk-song, smells of “delicate young wine,” or, as the French poets say, of “thousands of flowers.”-- Laughing mouth, mouth to caress, Kissing ere its lips you press; Sweet for kissing, balmy breath Like the perfume of fresh heath. W. F. H. A woman’s breath, which intoxicates man, is, as it were, the ethereal expression of her whole being. In the description of the youthful Blancheflor we are told that her breath is so delicious and refreshing that he who experiences it knows not pain, and needs no food for a whole week.