Page:The Kiss and its History.djvu/69

Rh small, obliging postilions d'amour are employed. Heine uses his poems for that purpose:

While the young girl in Runeberg has recourse to a rose that has just blossomed:

But however much poets may clothe with grace such kisses sent and received by post—and it cannot be denied that many of them are extraordinarily charming from a poetical point of view—they are, and must be, nevertheless, in reality only certain mean substitutes with which lovers in the long run cannot feel fully satisfied. "The kiss," says the practical Frenchmen, "is a fruit which one ought to pluck from the tree itself" (Le baiser est un