Thanks for all your responses to my questions. It has ben interresting
reading for me.
I am preparing myself in manners because i am going to visit Mauritia and
Kim Kirchner in Germany at next weekend. They are having a costume party
weekend, and i have butterflies in my belly because i look so much forwards
to this.
Thanks all
Bjarne
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Historical Costume" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 5:00 PM
Subject: Re: FW: [h-cost] modes and manners
It might be useful to Bjarne to know that in 1775 in England, at least,
hand-kissing was not necessarily literal. Witness this dialogue from
Richard Brinsley Sheridan's "The Rivals." Bob Acres, a country squire
eager to appear sophisticated during a visit to Bath, is meeting with his
acquaintance Sir Lucius O'Trigger, a landed Irish gentleman of
old-fashioned manners:
Enter Sir Lucius.
SIR LUCIUS: Mr. Acres, I am delighted to embrace you.
ACRES: My dear Sir Lucius, I kiss your hands.
It is probable that no embracing or hand-kissing actually takes place, but
that these are merely verbal expressions of good-will. (Indeed, the moment
on stage is much more delicious if the two gentlemen making these
statements are standing half a room apart!)
So between a gentleman and a lady in 1775 I would imagine (on this
theatrical basis) that hand-kissing would be essentially a courtly gesture
rather than necessarily a lip-to-flesh experience, and bowing low over the
lady's hand would do.
--Ruth Anne Baumgartner
scholar gypsy and amateur costumer
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