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light he could not read, and in which he trembled. He was scarcely reassured when she touched his hand in greeting.

"The last of Dorothea Vance's caprices!" she said, placing the lamp on a small malachite stand, and facing George Latten, with a dazzling and bewitching smile, her pretty hands claspsed, her bright eyes shining on him.

"All your caprices are as beautiful as yourself," he managed to say, mechanically, through dry lips, for the intangible terror was closing in upon him, whence or how he knew not.

"Even to my whim of visiting hospitals, and bringing my dainty raiment in contact with my fellow-pieces of clay, whom we call the poor ?" said Dorothea Vance, with a sudden flash of mockery in her eyes. "Your conversion, parole d'honneur, is sudden !"

"I loathe the poor and poverty," he said, looking coolly away from her and gnawing his full underlip.

And Dorothea Vance, the angel of consolation to the starving, the lame, the blind, the halt, was going to marry this man! Were not her first pure instincts of terror of him true and faithful witnesses ?

The glamour of his beauty was upon her; she would awake, and-too late-words of anguish! Intolerable death of Hope, the flame of Life!

"George," she said, looking with arch eyes at Mrs. Dunscombe, "my last escapade is my worst. Will you marry me this evening, instead of to-morrow at church? All is prepared. The clergyman and witnesses are here, and I-I am ready !"

"Dorothea !"

"I am in earnest," she said, looking at him seriously. "My dear," cried Mrs. Dunscombe, "think of what people will say! In your position, too! and the guests invited!

Dorothea caught her hands in hers affectionately. "When I was a queer little elf of a child, you dear old goose!" she said, "I used to introduce myself as "nobody's business. I am in the same predicament yet!"

As in a dream, George Latten found himself standing with Dorothea before the clergyman, in the wide, bright silence of those rooms, with the first words of the marriageservice falling on his ears, as if from some high-lifted shore among the stars.

Then he heard Dorothea whisper to him, "Have you a ring?" and he began, mechanically, to remove one from his finger; but, in a sudden, silver, shrill voice, she said: "Stay! I will furnish one !"

With a hasty movement, she started from his side, and stretched out her white arm to him, dropping into his hand a bruised ring of gold, a ruby heart dropped upon its shining circle.

She was facing him now, pale as some wondrous statue of ivory, her eyes outflashing the diamonds blazing about her-beside her a man with a haggard face and an almost skeleton frame, even yet magnificent in its colossal proportions-the miner of Water-hole Gulch, Lyon Grey!

The devil did not desert his angel. Altamond Grey flung the ring at his feet, and faced them, grand in his young beauty as some star-crowned creation of mythology.

"So!" he said, "the game is up! I thought when I stole on your solitude, you thinking me thousands of miles away, at the college at which your bounty kept me, that I had rid myself of you for ever, Lyon. That is the traitor ;" and he kicked the ring at his feet. "I lost it in your shanty. Well, how is it to be ?"

The young villain saw the unutterable anguish of compassion and hopelessness of him in that dark, kingly face,

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"And you!" he said-"you knew me from the first ?" "Yes," said Dorothea, fierce and beautiful as an avenging angel. "I knew you. I brought your mother here to identify you. I had you dogged by night and by day; and in my visits among the hospitals, I found your brother, who had come in pursuit of you-Cain, that you are!— lying, stricken down by an accident; and this is the result!”

"

"Very effective !" said Altamond Grey: "but you seem to forget that you are my promised wife, Miss Vance." Dorothea turned to Lyon, and laid her hand in his. "I was married to Lyon Grey an hour ago.' "Well," said Altamond Grey, coolly, "I suspect I must be rather de trop here, so I shall make my adieus. It is not likely we shall meet again !" and, with a wave of his hand and a smile, he left the room, and within an hour had left the city, with all the available funds he could collect.

Well, so the affair ended, except that it left Lyon an aged and melancholy man, to whom the wifely affection of Dorothea was as a glimpse of heaven, and yet had no power to blot out the memory of the past.

A man with the glorious face of Altamond Grey was swept away with yellow fever, during a terrific visitation of the scourge to New Orleans, and was huddled, a nameless pauper, into a common pit, with scores of others. On his finger was a worn gold ring, with a ruby-heart dropped upon its circle.

THE HISTORY OF KISSING.
BY T. F. THISTLETON DYER,

AS AN act expressive of endearment, kissing would appear to be the most natural. ""Tis certain," says Steele, "Nature was its author, and that it began with the first courtship." Although, however, the first symbol of affection throughout the civilized world, yet in days gone by it was entirely unknown to many races, such as the aborigines of Australia, the New Zealanders, and the Tahitians. Sir John Lubbock, in his " Prehistoric Times" (1878, p. 440), speaking of the various ways by which the feelings are expressed in different countries, has shown that by the Esquimaux kissing was formerly unknown, and remarks that the Hill tribes of Chittagong do not say "Kiss me," but "Smell me." Indeed, the circumstance that certain rude tribes have no knowledge of what may be regarded as one of the very earliest forms of primitive culture may be considered as a proof of primeval barbarism. The fact, too, is all the more remarkable because of the earliest ages in the world's history-from its very infancy-the act of kissing has been handed down as the natural expression of affection. And so one would have imagined that slightest intercourse of cultured races with uncivilized communities would at once have taught them almost intuitively to embrace so simple an exponent of feeling. Without, however, further discussing this subject, which is rather one for the student of anthropology, there can be no doubt that the custom of kissing is of all acts the most universal, and in the present paper we propose to give a brief survey of the numerous rites and ceremonies with which in the course of history it has been prominently associated.

In the first place, then, as a mode of salutation, we may trace the custom of kissing to a very remote period, numerous instances occurring in the Sacred Writings. Thus we read how men saluted the sun, moon, and stars by kissing the hand, a superstition of which Job says he was

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taking an oath can by any means be avoided, the false witness escapes the risk of incurring the charge of perjury. "It has occasionally been advanced," we are informed, "as a plea of legal non-liability in actions for false swearing, that the accused kissed his or her own right thumb which held the volume, and never touched it with the lips at all."

Then there is in England the kissing the sovereign's hand at court, in connection with which may be related the following anecdote. In China, it appears, the person admitted to the presence of the Celestial Emperor prostrates himself nine times, each time beating his head against the ground. This act of ceremony is to be performed to the emperor's place, throne, or chair of state even though he himself should be absent. In the year 1816, when Lord Amherst went as ambassador to China, an imperial banquet was given to him and his suite; but when he was called to pay the usual mark of respect as though the emperor was present, he refused. When Napoleon at St. Helena heard of this, he said, "the English minister had acted wrongly in not ordering him to comply with the customs of the place he was scnt to, otherwise they ought not to have sent him at all." He further added, "Different nations have different customs. In England you kiss the king's hand at court. Such a thing in France would be looked upon as ridiculous, and the person who did so would be held up to public scorn; but still, the French ambassador who performed such an act would not be considered as having degraded himself. In England, some hundred years back, the king was served kneeling; the

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THE KISSING BRIDGE, FIFTIETH STREET AND SECOND AVENUE, NEW YORK. never guilty-the same honor having been tendered to Baal. But, apart from such reference as these, abundant evidence of the universality of this practice in past and modern times is to be found in the writings of most countries. The Greeks, we know, were in the habit of kissing the lips, hands, knees, or feet, in salutations, according as they considered the person worthy of more or less respect. In Homer we see Priam kissing the hands and embracing the knees of Achilles while he supplicates for the body of Hector. The custom also prevailed in ancient Rome, and Mr. Disraeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature," referring to it, remarks how "the great respect paid to the tribunes, consuls, or dictators obliged individuals to live with them in a more distant and respectful manner; and instead of embracing them as they did formerly, they considered themselves as fortunate if allowed to kiss their hands. Under the emperors, kissing hands became an essential duty, even for the great themselves." The Carthaginians, as a mark of love and sign of friendship, were in the habit of kissing their right hands each together, and then would kiss one another. Indeed, under a variety of forms the act of kissing has entered largely in most countries into the ceremonies of salutation; and, at the present day, many of the kissing customs kept up, apart from their social usage, are interesting in so far as they have been handed down by our forefathers from the distant past.

Another important use to which kissing has been applied has been termed "the kiss of ceremony." Thus, in our courts of law and other places, the form of kissing the New Testament, as an acknowledgment of the juror's faith therein, in support of the sacred nature to him of the vow he has just taken, is an old-established usage. Indeed, there is a popular notion that if "kissing the Book" in

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THE YOUNG MOTHER'S KISS,

certain woman, when making an offering to the Pope, not only kissed his hand, but committed the terrible outrage of squeezing it. The Pope, seeing the danger to which he was thus exposed, cut off his hand, and by this means escaped the contamination to which he had been rendered liable. Since that time the precaution has been taken of kissing the Pope's toe instead of his hand; and lest any one should doubt the accuracy of this account, the

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same ceremony now takes place in Spain. A man who goes into a country must comply with the ceremonies in use there. And it would have been no degradation whatever for Lord Amherst to have submitted to such ceremonies before the Emperor of China as are performed by the first mandarins of that empire."

In Théophile Gautier's "Constantinople of To-day" there is an account of the ceremony of

THE KISS OF CHILDHOOD AND OF YOUTH.

kissing the Sultan's toe, an honor which is reserved for the vizier, ministers and certain privileged pashas. This act of homage is performed with the utmost solemnity, and is marked by every sign of respect worthy of so important an occasion.

Referring, in the next place, to the custom of kissing the Pope's toe, Matthew of Westminster thus explains its origin. Formerly it was usual to kiss the hand of his Holiness, but toward the close of the eighth century a

historian argues that the hand, which had been cut off five or six hundred years before, still existed at Rome - a standing miracle, since it was preserved in its original state, free from corruption. When the ceremony of kissing the Pope's toe takes place, he wears on the occasion a slipper with a cross. We may note here that kissing the foot is a common Oriental sign of respect, and is said to have been introduced into the West by the later Roman emperors, whose court ceremonies were mixed with so many servile customs.

Among other ceremonious acts in which kissing holds the prominent place may be noticed that of kissing the hand-an act supposed to indicate extreme gratitude; this custom, too, is still kept up amongst the lower orders, who often show their sense of thankfulness to a benefactor by kissing his hand. Then there is the practice of kissing one's hand as a mark of courtesy, to

which we find an allusion in Howell's "Familiar Letters"
(1650)—. “ This letter comes to kisse your hands trom fair
Florence, a city so beautifull." In a less refined form
this custom was termed "kissing the claws," to which
Taylor refers :

"These men can kisse their claws, with-Jack, how is't?
And take and shake me kindly by the fist,
And put me off with dilatory cogges."

Shakespeare, again, introduces it, as in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," where to kiss the hostess is indirectly spoken of as a common courtesy of the day. In Lupton's "London," too (1632), an established attraction of a country inn, we are told, was a pretty hostess or her daughter to salute the guests, without which, it would appear, there was small chance of its becoming a popular resort for the customers of that period. Again, amongst some of the old customs, in which kissing held a pron.inent place, may be mentioned the ceremony of betrothing, where it served as a kind of seal. Thus, in "Twelfth Night" (act v. sc. 1), Shakespeare makes the priest say— "A contract of eternal bond of love,

Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,

Strengthened by interchangement of your rings;
And all the ceremony of this compact,
Seal'd in my function, by my testimony."

In former years the practice of saluting ladies with a
kiss seems to have been very general, and many amusing
anecdotes of this social custom are on record. It was,
however, occasionally severely censured as being open to
abuse. Thus, for instance, John Bunyan, in his "Grace
Abounding," speaking of it, strongly condemns it. "The
common salutation of women," he says, "I abhor; it is
odious to me in whomscever I see it. When I have seen
good men salute those women that they have visited, or
that have visited them, I have made my objections against
it; and when they have answered that it was but a piece
of civility, I have made my objections against it; I have
told them that it was not a comely sight. Some, indeed,
have urged the holy kiss; but then I have asked them
why they made balks?-why they did salute the most
handsome, and let the ill-favored go?" In spite, how- Whereupon the Duke of Austria says :
ever of the censure poured on this old fashion by even
conscientious moralists of the time, there can be no doubt
that it found favor in the eyes of most of the ladies of our
own and other countries.

We may also compare the following passage in "King
John" (act ii. sc. 1), where King Philip says:
"Young princes, close your hands."

"And your lips, too; for I am well assured

That I did so when I was first assured."

A very early instance of this custom occurs in the "Life of St. Leobard," who flourished about the year 580 (written by Gregory of Tours), and who is related to have given to his affianced a ring, a kiss and a pair of shoes. (1839, p. Douce, in his "Illustrations of Shakespeare" 69), quotes a curious anecdote from the "Miracles of the Virgin Mary," compiled in the twelfth century by a French monk.'

It has been often remarked, with more or less truth, that there are few of the fair sex who are, in their inmost heart, indifferent to the admiration paid to them in daily life, and who would regard with disfavor a kiss politely offered to them from some gallant swain whom, it may be, they have captivated by their countless charms. History, we know, is daily repeating itself, and it is difficult to believe that human nature is different nowadays from what It appears that a young man, falling in love with an it was in years gone by, although the manners of society image of the Virgin, inadvertently placed on one of its may have undergone certain changes. It is easy to criti-fingers a ring which he had received from his mistress, cise in unmeasured terms the social usages of our prede- accompanying the gift with the most tender language and cessors, but, after all, it must not be forgotten that in the mark of affection. A miracle instantly took place, and present age the same customs are often as popular as ever; the ring remained immovable. The young man, greatly the only difference being that, instead of having public alarmed for his rash conduct, at once consulted his friends, recognition, they find a tacit acceptance. who advised him by all means to devote himself entirely to the service of the Madonna. Unable, however, to relinquish his love for his former mistress, he married her. But, alas! on the wedding-night the newly betrothed lady appeared to him, and urged her claim with so many dreadful menaces that he felt himself compelled to abandon his bride, and that very night to retire privately to a hermitage, where he became a monk for the rest of his days.

Returning again to some of the famous instances of salutation by kissing, it may be remembered how Cavendish, in his "Biography of Cardinal Wolsey," dwells on this custom, when describing his visit at Monsieur Crequi's castle: "I being in a fair, great dining-chamber," he tells us, "where the table was covered for dinner, and there I attended my lady's coming; and after she came thither out of her own chamber, she received me most gently, like one of noble estate, having a train of gentlewomen. And when she, with her train, came all out, she said to me: For as much,' quoth she, as ye be an Englishman whose custom it is in your country to kiss all ladies and gentlewomen without offense, and although it be not so in this realm (France), yet will I be so bold as to kiss you, and so shall all my maidens.' By means whereof I kissed my lady and all her maidens."

Not only, too, did the kiss form a part of the old cercmony of affiancing, but it even constituted a portion of the marriage service itself, as appears from a rubric in one of the Salisbury missals, It may be remembered what an excellent use Shakespeare has made of this custom in the "Taming of the Shrew," where he relates how Petruchio

(act iii. sc. 2): "Took the bride about the neck;

And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack,
That at the parting all the church did echo."

Chaucer frequently alludes to this old custom, and our readers may recollect how, in the "Sompnour's Tale," he notices the zeal with which the holy father performs this act of gallantry. When the mistress of the house enters the room, where he is busily engaged in "groping ten-France, the King pathetically exclaims: derly" her husband's conscience, we are told how

Again, in "King Richard II." (act v. sc. 1), where the Duke of Northumberland announces to the King that he is to be sent to Pomfret, and his wife to be banished to

"He riseth up full curtishly

And her embraceth in his armes narrow,

And kisseth her sweet, and chirketh as a sparrow
With his lippes."

"Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate

A twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me,
And then betwixt me and my married wife.
Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made."

Marston, too, in his "Insatiate Countess," says:

"The kisse thou gavest me in the church, here take."

At the present day there is a popular notion in some parts of the country that it is the privilege of the parson conclusion of the ceremony. Mr. Henderson, in his "Folklore of the Northern Counties" (1879, p. 39), relates how a clergyman, a stranger in the neighborhood, after performing a marriage in a Yorkshire village, was surprised to see the party keep together as if expecting something. "What are you waiting for?" he asked, at last. "Please, sir," was the bridegroom's answer, "ye've no kissed Molly."

who ties the knot to be the first to kiss the bride on the

Not many years ago, we are told how a fair lady from the County of Durham, who was married in the South of England, so undoubtedly reckoned for the clerical salute, that, after waiting for it in vain, she boldly took the

initiative and bestowed a kiss on the much-amazed South

country vicar. The practice, too, was in years past much kept up in Scotland, as is referred to in the following old song, in which the bridegroom, addressing the minister, says:

"It's no very decent for you to be kissing;

It does not look weel in the black coat ava,
"Twould have set you far better tae hae gi'en your blessing
Than thus by such tricks to be breaking the law.
Dear Wattie, quo' Robin, it's just an old custom,

And the thing that is common should ne'er be ill ta'en,
For where ye are wrong, if ye had na a wished him,

You should ha' been first. It's yoursel' is to blame."

It has been suggested that this custom may be a relic of the osculum pacis, or the presentation of the Pax to the newly married pair. Mr. Henderson also informs us that some years ago it was customary in Ireland for the clergyman to conclude the marriage ceremony with the words, "Kiss your wife," and occasionally "the bridegroom was hard put to prevent one or other of his companions from intercepting the salute designed for himself."

Again, in years gone by, a kiss was the recognized fee of a lady's partner, and as such is noticed by Shakespeare in "Henry VIII.” (act i. sc. 4):

"I were unmannerly to take you out
And not kiss you."

In an old treatise, too, entitled the "Use and Abuse of Dancing and Minstrelsie," we read:

"But some reply, what foole will daunce, If that when daunce is doon;

He may not have at ladyes lips
That which in daunce he woon."

The custom is still prevalent among country people in many parts of the kingdom. "When," says Brand ("Pop. Antiq." ii. 140), "the fiddler thinks his young couple have had music enough, he makes his instrument squeak out the notes which all understand to say 'Kiss her !'"

In the sixteenth century it appears that English balls were usually opened with a kissing-dance entitled "A Brawl," to which Shakespeare refers in "Love's Labor's Lost" (act iii. sc. 1), where Moth asks:

"Master, will you win your love with a French brawl ?" The performers, we are told, first united hands in a circle, and then, after the leading couple had placed themselves in the centre of the ring, and the gentleman saluted all the ladies in turn, and his fair partner each gentleman;

the figure continuing until every pair had followed the example set them.

The Puritans of the Elizabethan age strongly condemned this dance, and Stubbes exclaims, "What clipping, what culling, what kissing and bussing, and monching of one another !" In spite, however, of all opposition, a writer in the "Graphic and Historical Illustrator ("1834, P. 183) remarks that this kissing-dance "ran a career unparalleled in the history of salutation. It spread from land to land: and everywhere, from the court to the cottage, was enthusiastically welcomed." Wraxall, also, relates in his "History of France," how the Duke of Montpensier, only a few days before he expired, was removed from his bed purposely to witness "one of these

dances, which was performed in his own palace by some of

the young nobility."

In modern days we may compare with this once fashionable dance that popular game known as "Kiss in the Ring," which is kept up with so much enthusiasm amongst the lower orders. Once more, to quote another attraction, we may mention that Christmas gambol known as "Kissing under the Mistletoe," for, in accordance with an old notion formerly prevalent, the maid who was not kissed under it at Christmas would not be married in that year.

scene of merriment in which kissing constitutes the chief

This custom is said to have originated thus: Balder, the Apollo of Scandinavian mythology, was killed by a mistletoe arrow given to the blind Höder, by Loki, the God of Mischief. Balder was, nevertheless, restored to life, but henceforth the mistletoe was placed under the care of Friga, and was never again to be an instrument of evil till it touched the earth, the empire of Loki. On this account it is always suspended from ceilings, and so whenever persons of opposite sexes pass under it they give one another the kiss of peace and love, in the full assurance that this plant is no longer an instrument of mischief.

Lastly, of the many kissing terms employed at different times, there was one formerly in use termed "Kissing the hare's foot," applied to those who came so late that they lost their dinner or supper; the meaning probably being that those who came too late to partake of the hare had no better chance than to kiss the foot, and get nothing to eat. In Browne's "British Pastorals" we read:

""Tis supper-time with all, and we had need

Make haste away, unless we mean to speed

With those that kiss the hare's foot. Rhumes are bred, Some say, by going supperless to bed,

And those I love not."

"To kiss the post," meant to be shut out, and occurs in Pasquil's "Night Cap" (1612):

"Men of all countries travel through the same

And, if they want money, may kisse the post."

Again, the "Lamourette's kiss," which is a term used for a reconciliation of policy without abatement of rancor, originated in the following circumstance: On July 7th, 1792, the Abbé Lamourette induced the different factions of the Legislative Assembly of France to lay aside their differences; so the deputies of the Royalists, Constitutionalists, Girondists, Jacobins, and Orientalists rushed into each other's arms, and the King was sent for to see "how these Christians loved one another"; but the reconciliation was hollow and unsound.

Once more, the pansy, from its habit of coquettishly hanging its head and half hiding its face, has had many quaint names applied to it, such as "Kiss me behind the

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