writing over a hundred years later, viewed the spectacle more sourly: he abhorred "the common salutation of women," and punctured the arguments of those who called these "holy kisses" thus:
But then, I have asked them why they make balks? why they did salute the most handsome, and let the ill-favored ones go?
The kiss at the point of death is not unknown in English chronicles. When Nelson was dying on board his flagship, he turned to his faithful friend at his side: "Kiss me, Hardy!" These were the last words he uttered. Sir Walter Scott, when dying, took leave of his friend Lockhart in the same fashion. The kiss among men, once popular in England, came over when England aped French notions of chivalry. Germany has the same custom: in 1888, when the Emperor William met the Czar at St. Petersburg, the two rulers embraced and kissed several times. As the kiss among men entered England, the general kissing of women declined—all due to the innovations of the "old goat," Charles II, at the time of the Restoration. Even canny Scotland has widespread kissing chronicled in several periods.
The state of kissing in the United States today is generally well known: it is a far cry from our liberality to the old Blue Laws of Connecticut, with a heavy penalty for kissing one's wife on Sundays or fast days, and, for all we know, boiling in oil for kissing the wife of another. It is still unlawful to kiss a girl
