Page:The art of kissing (IA artofkissing987wood).djvu/13

 and of the kiss. There is a Puritan tradition behind many of us, which forbids kissing any woman but one's wife (or, by grudging extension, one's fiancee): and which even forbids kissing one's wife on Sundays and holy days. The latter prohibition, some husbands hold, might well be broadened; but the very spice of love lies in kissing one who is not one's wife or husband, if popular belief is at all right. This Puritan tradition has had its weight; it has made women offer lips no more attractive than damp salt mackerel, and men try to kiss a human being as if she were the man's mother-in-law. Then there is the recoil from this tradition, which makes a man's first kiss like a vacuum cleaner, often alarming the girl for life; and a girl's first kiss so marvelous, that all proper sense of climax is lost. There is ample room for a little common science on the heavenly art of kissing.

Leaping away, then, from the European or lip kiss, we find that much more widely distributed throughout the world of men is the nose or olfactory kiss. As performed by the Japanese, this kiss involves three distinct stages:

Kisses similar to this are the staple product in China, India, Ceylon, much of Africa. The connoisseur in kisses might try this variety: but, compared to many of the Occidental varie-