strive, the intermingling of hearts, as it were.

Do you remember the verses of Sully-Prudhomme:

Caresses are nothing but anxious bliss,
Vain attempts of love to unite souls through a kiss.

One caress alone gives this deep sensation of two beings welded into one
--it is the kiss. No violent delirium of complete possession is
worth this trembling approach of the lips, this first moist and fresh
contact, and then the long, lingering, motionless rapture.

Therefore, my dear, the kiss is our strongest weapon, but we must take
care not to dull it. Do not forget that its value is only relative,
purely conventional. It continually changes according to circumstances,
the state of expectancy and the ecstasy of the mind. I will call
attention to one example.

Another poet, Francois Coppee, has written a line which we all remember,
a line which we find delightful, which moves our very hearts.

After describing the expectancy of a lover, waiting in a room one
winter's evening, his anxiety, his nervous impatience, the terrible fear
of not seeing her, he describes the arrival of the beloved woman, who at
last enters hurriedly, out of breath, bringing with her part of the
winter breeze, and he exclaims:

Oh! the taste of the kisses first snatched through the veil.

Is that not a line of exquisite sentiment, a delicate and charming