Embrasure

“ Are we face to face with something primitive, or something conventional and derivative? Is it as natural to kiss when we are transported with love as it is to smile when we are mirthful, or weep when we are sad? ”

“ And one kiss of your lily-white lips Is all that I would have.’ ‘Your breath is as the roses sweet, Mine as the sulphur strong; If you get one kiss of my lips, Your days would not be long. ‘Mind not ye the day, Willie, Sin you and I did walk? ”

“ A blush spread itself on her face and bosom; she turned upon her back as if impelled by the agency of someone, her lovely thighs spread of themselves, her breasts heaved rapidly, her whole body was agitated, her arms spread then of a sudden fell, and then she became motionless as death. Certainly she had tasted in a dream all those joys which the waking sense can know. A soft emotion succeed the calm in which she had been absorbed. ”

“ When I go raving at night, weeping by day, with a knife in my heart, tears that scald my eyes! When with these pains to endure, these perils to skirt, heights to fly, you will speak, touch me, breathe upon me, tempt me to greet you with kissing of the lips—ah, heaven and hell! it is over-much. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It seemed to the child like the deeply taken breath of some huge creature, a breath coming in waves and at intervals prolonged into a long drawn sigh. But more regular than this breathing was a steady beat, beat. It must be the creature's heart! ”

“ Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get this pretty ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into hooks and bands. ”

“ The emotions in this stage are made at command, in the true acceptation of the word, for they are produced, not by orders verbally expressed, but by expressive movements. If the hands are opened and drawn close to the mouth, as when a kiss is wafted, the mouth smiles. If the arms are extended and half bent at the elbows, the countenance assumes an expression of astonishment. ”

“ I shall breathe the sweet breath which comes forth from Thy mouth. I shall behold Thy beauty every day. It is my desire that I may hear Thy sweet voice, even the North wind, that my limbs may rejuvenate with life through love of Thee. ”

“ Thirst may be quenched at any kindly river,
Rest may be found ’neath any arching tree.
No sleep allures, no draughts of love deliver
My spirit from its aching need of thee.
Thy sweet assentiveness to my demands,
All the caressive touches of thy hands,—
These soft cool hands, with fingers tipped with fire,—
They can do nothing to assuage desire. ”

“ Suddenly something swept over and through us, like a cold wind, or a sharp cry, or both, and we all became fixed in a breath, the smile, the wreath, the tiptoe foot, and we hardened and grew less, and the air inside the ring died with our breaths in it, and the joy froze out of us, and the recollection of all we were faded. ”

“ When a woman, having placed one of her feet on the foot of her lover, and the other on one of his thighs, passes one of her arms round his back, and the other on his shoulders, makes slightly the sounds of singing and cooing, and wishes, as it were, to climb up him in order to have a kiss, it is called an embrace like the 'climbing of a tree'. ”

“ Darkness cleaving to darkness, she hung close to him, pressed herself into soft flow of his kiss, pressed herself down, down to the source and core of his kiss, herself covered and enveloped in the warm, fecund flow of his kiss, that travelled over her, flowed over her, covered her, flowed over the last fibre of her, so they were one stream, one dark fecundity, and she clung at the core of him, with her lips holding open the very bottommost source of him. ”

“ Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:— What word can answer to thy word,—what gaze To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays? What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove, O lovely and beloved, O my love? ”

“ THE KISS—A DIALOGUE.
1. Among thy fancies, tell me this:
What is the thing we call a kiss?
2. I shall resolve ye what it is:
It is a creature born and bred
Between the lips, all cherry red;
By love and warm desires fed;
Chor. And makes more soft the bridal bed. [94]
It is an active flame that flies
First to the babies of the eyes,
And charms them there with lullabies;
Chor. And stills the bride too when she cries:
Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear,
It frisks, and flies,—now here, now there ”

“ Do you not hear the moaning of our pulses?
Queen! Goddess! Animal!
In sleep do your dreams battle with our souls?
When your hair is spread like a lover on the pillow
Do not our jealous pulses wake between? ”

“ Uncover the glimmering, shy limbs.
I break wild roses, scatter them over her.
The thorns between us sting like love's pain.
Her flesh, bitter and salt to my tongue,
I taste with endless kisses and taste again. ”

“ Your heavy hand would bruise the soft flesh and discolor its purity. Be content to feast your eyes upon its beauty, and breathe its wonderful fragrance, floating on the air like the breath of love in the south and wild summer. ”

“ Now the breeze is the softest sigh imaginable, yet with a spiritual potency, insomuch that it seems to penetrate, with its mild, ethereal coolness, through the outward clay, and breathe upon the spirit itself, which shivers with gentle delight. ”

“ The gentle pressure of the hand, one kiss—
A kiss not given yet not resisted—tells
A tale of love that words are poor to tell.
And when she goes how lonely seems her way
Through groves, through fields, through busy haunts of men ”

“ See, I bury my face in the grass, and the breath I draw in through my nostrils sets me quivering with a thousand thoughts and fancies. It is a breath of the Universe I have breathed. I know song and laughter, and success and pain, and struggle and death ”

“ A kiss is expressive of love in the widest and most comprehensive meaning of the word, bringing a message of loyal affection, gratitude, compassion, sympathy, intense joy, and profound sorrow. In the first place a kiss is the expression of the deep and intense feeling which knits parents to their offspring. At its entrance into the world the little helpless infant is received by its father's and mother's warm kiss. ”

“ Moreover, we can discriminate the kinds of feeling that are expressed by these cries and gestures. Roughly speaking, bodily movement is the natural outlet of active vitality, of the joy of life and the lust of living, while it is the more contemplative emotions—love, grief, reverie, devotion—that find vocal utterance. ”

“ What exhilarating and fragrant aroma diffuses itself through all the chambers of their souls! And this new love which is felt as something unspeakably delightful, at the same time quickens and exalts all their other loves, and imparts to them a fresh delight. They are more kind and tender and affectionate toward everybody. ”

“ The above two kinds of embrace take place only between persons who do not, as yet, speak freely with each other.
When two lovers are walking slowly together, either in the dark, or in a place of public resort, or in a lonely place, and rub their bodies against each other, it is called a 'rubbing embrace'. ”

“ Her breath comes thick, her wild heart glows,
Dilating as the madness grows,
Her form looks larger to the eye,
Unearthly peals her deep-toned cry,
As breathing nearer and more near
The God comes rushing on his seer. ”

“ Then she opened her eyes and looking round, exclaimed in a sweet and melodious voice, ‘Out on thee, O breeze! There is in thee neither drink for the thirsty nor solace for him whose thirst is quenched! ”

“ In mere tender emotion not sexual, there is nothing but the sense of touch to gratify, unless we assume the occult magnetic influences.... In a word, our love pleasures begin and end in sensual contact. Touch is both the alpha and omega of affection. As the terminal and satisfying sensation, the ne plus ultra, it must be a pleasure of the highest degree.... Why should a more lively feeling grow up towards a fellow-being than towards a perennial fountain? ”

“ In the room there is a deep silence interrupted only by the breath of two human beings,—the mother’s breath, full and apparently free, but occasionally shortened as in anxiety, and the delicate breath of the child, a breath alarmingly quickened. ”

“ Chante; ton chant assoupit l'âme et l'onde:
Fais de ton sein pour mon âme un séjour,
Elle est bien lasse, ô mère, de ce monde,
Où le baiser ne veut pas dire amour,
Où l'âme aimée est moins que toi profonde. ”

“ How intoxicating, indeed, how penetrating—like a most precious wine—is that love which is the sexual transformed by the magic of the will into the emotional and spiritual! And what a loss, on the merest ground of prudence and the economy of pleasure, is the unbridled waste along physical channels! ”

“ They all have faces which express something, and most of them have perfumes which penetrate to our very souls. We can the more easily understand what is called the spirit within us, by smelling the perfume of a flower. ”

“ I was content to wait, and feel the light evening air in the garden wafting happiness over me. And all this had come from a kiss! I can call the time to mind when I used to wonder why people made such a fuss about kissing. ”

“ For you the sweet proffered kiss?
Can such pleasure from an earthly life flow?
Ah! How light and radiance danced before my eyes.
All my senses yearned for those lips!
A longing in those bright eyes sparkled ”

“ When fervent and rich affections are called forth, the heart-beats are heavier, and respiration is longer-drawn and deeper. Affections of a passionate nature set the blood and body as it were on fire. ”

“ With passion too intense for light,” —weary, and with little heart for loneliness and doubt and woe, yet I could not be quite sure that when I opened our own door some one might not run out hotly, and give me no time to speak, but hold me lip to lip, and breast to breast, with scarcely room for a tear between us. ”

“ I shall not attempt to give vent to the different emotions which agitate my heart—You may term a feeling, which appears to me to be a degree of delicacy that naturally arises from sensibility, pride—Still I cannot indulge the very affectionate tenderness which glows in my bosom, without trembling, till I see, by your eyes, that it is mutual. ”

“ Such oceans of affection lay within his breast as could not always slumber in their calmness. For the hearts of a hundred men strove and struggled together within the narrow continent of his single heart. ”

“ Heart, lungs, blood stream, the great viscera and the internal glands, cerebrum and sympathetic nervous system, all participate in this activity, and the outward visage of excitement is always the wide-open eye, the slightly parted lips, the flaring nostrils and the slightly tensed muscles of the whole body. Shouts, cries, the waving of arms and legs, taking the specific direction of some emotion, make of excitement a fierce discharger of energy, a fact of great importance in the understanding of social and pathological phenomena. ”

“ All are aware that uneasy feelings, existing habitually in the breast, speedily exhibit their signature on the countenance, and that bitter thoughts or a bad temper spoil the human expression of its comeliness and grace. ”

“ When the ecstatic moment overtook us, our mouths had to cease their operations to give vent to the expressions of the rapturous nature of our feelings. We lay panting for some time before being able to rise and resume our mutual caresses. ”

“ Those scents and spices are for perfumed balls to be worn round the ladies' necks, there to move up and down to the music of sighs and heart-beating, envied by lovers whose letters will perhaps be perfumed by their contact. ”

“ The joys of Love are consequent upon the rush of nervous fluid along the nerval fibrils, filamental cords, or wires of the system, centring in the vital ganglia of either sex. When it flows alone it is electric. When it contacts on both sides it is magnetic. 2d. The fulness of Love-joy depends upon the plethora of vital life and nerve-aura stored up in the ganglia of the system, but especially upon the greater or less stock magazined within the mystic cripts appointed of Nature for that purpose. ”

“ To prove that for a satisfactory performance this must be the case, it will but be necessary to call attention to the fact that under various emotions our mode of breathing undergoes great changes—as under fear, hate, jealousy, indignation, excitement, love, enthusiasm, benevolence, languor, apathy, etc. Our breathing under these different circumstances will, the same as the manner of our expression, undergo various stages of change as to time and measure, as well as to rhythm, emphasis and intonation. ”