and they had their husbands: and he was sure of reelection as long as he desired the position. This is political blarney reduced to maximum efficiency with the least effort.
In England, political kissing depends for its blarney effect upon gold guineas in the mouth of the candidate, which he passes to the wives of the electors as he kisses them. A Norfolk member was expelled from the House for this ingenious method of vote-geting. On one memorable occasion, the Duchess of Devonshire gave a butcher a kiss in exchange for a vote. Many American candidates omit the kissing and let their campaign platform drip with blarney. This is as effective a vote-getter as the other way.
The Poets on Kissing.—Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the American "poetess of passion," uttered this truetalk about the kiss:
The lips that have been innocent of passion's kiss frequently ooze with gossip's poison.
Never to have been kissed is never to have lived. Perhaps it is a secret consciousness of this which renders the unkissed women of earth so bitter in their denunciation of the love-enlightened.
Shelley, who was no slouch as a lover, apostrophized the kiss thus:
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
