small, obliging postilions d'amour are employed. Heine uses his poems for that purpose:
O would that all my verses
Were kisses light and sweet:
I'd send them all in secret
My sweetheart's cheeks to greet.
While the young girl in Runeberg has recourse to a rose that has just blossomed:
Through the grove amidst the blooming flow'rets
Walked the bonnie maiden unattended,
And she plucked a new-born rose, exclaiming:
'Lovely flow'ret, if you'd only wings on,
I would send you to my well-beloved
When I'd fastened just two tiny greetings
Lightly on your right wing and your left wing;
One should bid him cover you with kisses,
And the other send you back to me soon.'
But however much poets may clothe with grace such kisses sent and received by post—and it cannot be denied that many of them are extraordinarily charming from a poetical point of view—they are, and must be, nevertheless, in reality only certain mean substitutes with which lovers in the long run cannot feel fully satisfied. "The kiss," says the practical Frenchmen, "is a fruit which one ought to pluck from the tree itself" (Le baiser est un
