There’s really not so very much to object to regarding this advice on kissing in the Louisville Weekly Courier from 1856, even if it does come from a preacher. Allowances must be made for different times I suppose, so he’s allowed the one cryptic admonition about excluding “soul” from the proceedings:

a reverend advises on kissing

The Rev. Sidney Smith once said, in writing of kissing: “We are in favor of a certain amount of shyness when a kiss is proposed, but it should not be continued too long; and when the fair one gives it, let it be administered with warmth and energy. Let there be no soul in it. If she close her eyes and sigh deeply immediately after it, the effect is greater. She should be careful not to slabber a kiss, but give it as a humming bird runs his bill into a honeysuckle — deep but delicate. There is much virtue in a kiss, when well delivered. We have had the memory of one we received in our youth, which has lasted us forty years, and we believe it will be one of the last things we will think of when we die.”

For a man who admits to being badly out of practice, he seems to have retained a solid grasp of the basic principles!

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