X's, crosses as kisses and as blessings

[Stephen Goranson]

A friend asked about the origin of X's used in letters meaning kisses. Not
knowing, I searched including in online OED, which under X has (with the first
citation expanded):

X [the letter]
II. Symbolic uses [a separate section has x in abbreviations]
6. Used to represent a kiss, esp. in the subscription to a letter.

1763 Gilbert WHITE Letters (1901 ed.) I. vii. 132,
Madame,.... In the whole it is best that I have been the loser [of a friendly
bet], as it would not be safe in all appearances to receive even so much as a
pin from your Hands. I am with many a xxxxxxx and many a
Pater noster and Ave Maria, Gil. White.

1894 W. S. CHURCHILL Let. 14 Mar. in R. S. Churchill Winston S. Churchill I.
Compan. I. (1967) vii. 456 Please excuse bad writing as I am in an
awful hurry. (Many kisses.) xxx WSC....

There is a large time gap between the two first citations.

Gilbert White (1720-1793) was a minister and a naturalist. I've read the whole
letter (and some biographical context), and while it could there possibly have
meant kisses, that was not, strictly speaking, certain, nor even necessarily
likely.

So I looked for other--and unimpeachably kiss-identified--instances between 1763
and 1894. There are several from the late 1800s; I found none as early as the
1700s. Here's one, from "An Acrobat's Girlhood" by Hesba Stretton in The
Sunday Magazine n.s. v. 18, 1889 p.410:

"Dearest, darling Ruth....Darling old woman, I often think of you and mother.
Don't let Nancy or little Ned be acrobats. They don't kno [sic] I'm riting.
[sic]--Your dear loving TRIXY-- x x x x x x x"

All the paper was filled up with crosses for kisses, and they meant that our
poor little Trixy was full of love for us all at home. [end story excerpt]

{Of course "sealed with a kiss" is much older, but those sealings are
generally direct kissing not epistolary.)

So I searched for and found some texts with "crosses for kisses" and the like.
E.g., in Aunt Judy's Magazine Issue XI p.669 (date uncertain so far, within
1866-1885) in a letter (to Mother) ps: "All these crosses mean kisses, Jemima
told me."

Funny Folks (London, England), Saturday, January 28, 1893; Issue 949.
     ?
Why do our sweet sentimental young misses
In love-letters make little crosses for kisses?
     !
To show that, when married, to lighten our losses
They'll give little kisses instead of our crosses!

In Notes & Queries Sept. 15, 1894 ser. 8, VI p.208 one H.B. Hyde tells of his or
her grandchildren writing letters with crosses meaning kisses after their names,
then asks about a reference in Robinson Crusoe (set in 17th cent.), and whether
such was a pre-Reformation, Roman Catholic, practice. Crusoe gets a letter
describing property:
"how many slaves there were upon it, and, making twenty-two crosses for
blessings he told me so many Ave Marias to thank the Blessed Virgin that I was
alive."

So maybe the 1762 OED letter means blessings too, not kisses.

As far as I can tell, no one responded to Hyde.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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