I WHAT IS A KISS?

CHAPTER I

WHAT IS A KISS?

IT MAY PERHAPS SEEM SOMEWHAT futile to begin with discussing what a kiss is: that every child of course knows. We are greeted with kisses directly we enter the world, and kisses follow us all our life long, as Hölty sings—

Giving kisses, snatching kisses,

Keeps the busy world employed.

W. F. H.

Nevertheless the question is not altogether superfluous. It seems to me even to offer certain points of interest, inasmuch as it is by no means so easy as people may imagine to define what a kiss is. If we turn to the poets we are often put off with the answer that a kiss is something that should be merely felt, and that people would do well to refrain from speculating as to what it actually is.

What says this glance? What meaning lurks in this

Squeezing of hands, embrace, and ling’ring kiss?

This only can your heart explain to you.

What have such matters with the brain to do?

W. F. H.

So, for instance, says Aarestrup; but he adds as a sort of explanation—

But when I see thee my fond kiss denying,

And straightway, nathless, mine embrace not spurning,

Then needs must I to tedious arts be turning,

And let crabb’d wisdom from my lips go flying.

Know then the voice alone interprets rightful

And with poetic fire from heart’s depth welleth,

And yet the sweetest of them all by no means!

Whereas the bosom, arms, and lips, and eye-sheens—

How shall I call it? for the total swelleth

Unto a language wordless as delightful.

W. F. H.

which has not brought us nearer to a solution of the question. Other poets give us an allegorical transcription, couched in vague poetical terms, which rather refer to the feelings of which the kiss may be an expression than attempt to define its physiology. Thus Paul Verlaine defines a kiss as “the fiery accompaniment on the board of the teeth of the lovely songs which love sings in a burning heart.”

Baiser! rose trémière au jardin des caresses!

Vif accompagnement sur le clavier des dents,

Des doux refrains qu’Amour chante en les cœurs ardents

Avec sa voix d’archange aux langueurs charmeresses!

This definition, which seems to me to be as original as it is beautiful and apt, deals, however, exclusively with the kiss of love; but kisses, as we all know, are capable of expressing many other emotions, and it enlightens us not one whit as to the external side of the nature of a kiss. Let us, therefore, leave the poets, and seek refuge with the philologists.

In the Dictionary of the Danish Philological Society (Videnskabernes Selskabs Ordbog) a kiss is defined as “a pressure of the mouth against a body.” As every one at once perceives, this explanation is very unsatisfactory, for, from the above statements, we could hardly accept more than one, viz., the mouth. Now, of course, it is quite clear that one of the first requisites for a kiss is a mouth. “Einen Kuss an sich, ohne Mund, kann man nicht geben,” say the Germans, and it is also remarkable that in Finnish, antaa sunta, “to kiss,” means literally “to give mouth.”

How does the mouth produce a kiss?

A kiss is produced by a kind of sucking movement of the muscles of the lips, accompanied by a weaker or louder sound. Thus, from a purely phonetic point of view, a kiss may be defined as an inspiratory bilabial sound, which English phoneticians call the lip-click, i.e., the sound made by smacking the lip. This movement of the muscles, however, is not of itself sufficient to produce a kiss, it being, as you know, employed by coachmen when they want to start their horses; but it becomes a kiss only when it is used as an expression of a certain feeling, and when the lips are pressed against, or simply come into contact with, a living creature or object.

The sound which follows a kiss has been carefully investigated by the Austrian savant, W. von Kempelen, in his remarkable book entitled The Mechanism of Human Speech (Wien, 1791). He divides kisses into three sorts, according to their sound. First he treats of kisses proper, which he characterises as a freundschaftlich hellklatschender Herzenskuss (an affectionate, clear-ringing kiss coming from the heart); next he defines the more discreet, or, from an acoustic point of view, weaker kiss; and, lastly, speaks contemptuously of a third kind of kiss, which is designated an ekelhafter Schmatz (a loathsome smack).

Many other writers have, although in a less scientific manner, sought to define and elucidate the sound that arises from a kiss. Johannes Jørgensen says very delicately in his Stemninger that “the splash of the waves against the pebbles of the beach is like the sound of long kisses.”

It is generally, however, an exclusively humorous or satirical aspect that is most conspicuous. In the Seducer’s Diary (Forførerens dagbog) of Sören Kierkegaard, Johannes speaks of the engaged couples who used to assemble in numbers at his uncle’s house: “Without interruption, the whole evenings through, one hears a sound as if a person was going round with a fly-flap: that is the lovers’ kisses.” A still more drastic comparison is found in the German expression, “the kiss sounded just like when a cow drags her hind hoof out of a swamp.” This metaphor, which is used, you know, by Mark Twain, is as graphic as it is easy of comprehension; whereas, on the other hand, I am somewhat perplexed with regard to an old Danish expression that is to be found in the Ole Lade’s Phrases (Fraser): “He kissed her so that it rang just as it does when one strikes the horns off felled cows.” Another old author speaks of kissing that sounds as if one was pulling the horn out of an owl.

The emotions expressed by this more or less noisy lip-sound are manifold and varying: burning love and affectionate friendship, exultant joy and profound grief, etc., etc.; consequently there must be many different sorts of kisses.

The austere old Rabbis only recognised three kinds of kisses, viz.: those of greeting, farewell, and respect. The Romans had also three kinds, but their classification was essentially at variance with the Rabbis’: they distinguished between oscula,[1] friendly kisses, basia, kisses of love, and suavia, passionate kisses. The significance of these words is clearly expressed in the following lines:—

Basia coniugibus, sed et oscula dantur amicis,

Suavia lascivis miscantur grata labellis.

But the Romans’ division is by no means exhaustive; kisses are and have been actually employed to express many other feelings than those above-mentioned.

That kisses in this book are arranged in five groups, viz., kisses of passion, love, peace, respect, and friendship, is chiefly due to practical considerations; for, to be precise, these artificially-formed groups are inadequate, and, besides, often overlap one another.

A modern French writer reckons no less than twenty sorts of kisses, but I find in German dictionaries over thirty different designations: Abschiedskuss, Brautkuss, Bruderkuss, Dankkuss, Doppelkuss, Ehrenkuss, Erwiderungskuss, Feuerkuss, Flammenkuss, Frauenkuss, Freundschaftskuss, Friedenskuss, Gegenkuss, Geisterkuss, Handkuss, Honigkuss, Inbruntskuss, Judaskuss, Lehenskuss, Liebeskuss, Mädchenkuss, Minnekuss, Morgenkuss, Mutterkuss, Nebenkuss, Pantoffelkuss, Segenskuss, Söhnungskuss, Undschuldskuss, Vermählungskuss, Versöhnungskuss, Wechselkuss, Weihekuss, Zuckerkuss, etc., etc. In German the verb itself, “to kiss,” is varied in many different ways, e.g., in Germany one may auküssen, aufküssen, ausküssen, beküssen, durchküssen, emporküssen, entküssen, erküssen, fortküssen, herküssen, nachküssen, verküssen, vorbeiküssen, wegküssen, widerküssen, zerküssen, zuküssen, and zurückküssen.

We must give the Germans the credit of being thorough, and in the highest degree methodical and exhaustive in their nomenclature, for can we conceive a more admirable word than, for instance, nachküssen, which is explained as “making up for kisses that have been omitted, or supplementing kisses”? However, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that they are at the same time awkward and tasteless in their expressions; a word such as ausküssen, which, for instance, is used in the refrain: Trink aus! Kuss aus! seems to me to smack perilously of the ale-house.

We have now seen what a kiss is; but before proceeding to investigate the different kinds of kisses, their...