Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1858-02-20
From the Ncwbcrry Rising Sun.
st. Valentines Day.

portion of the time between now and then
will be devoted by his admirers to his cs-
pecial use and service. The observance of
this day is one of those old customs with
which every one has some memory connect
ed, either amusing or orsentimcntal and, al
though much abused these latter years still
appeals in so many natural feelings and
sympathies, that it would be like blottine
out the memory of an old friend, to refuse
1T place in our hearts calendar
1t Is not known how. this custom origi-
mated, some say ST. Valentine was a benev-
olent old monk, who used to write all the
love letters for the young men and maidcns
to whom he was spiritual and temporal adj
wiser After his death they canonizod him,
and the young people, who idolizcd him,
used to carry flowers to his tombstone and
gifts to the Virgin TO propitate her in his
favor. Not that there was any necessity for
that, for If the Virgin was woman she
must have been favorably inclined towards
a man who, in those barbarous times, de-
voted himself wholly to the work of culti-
waiting love among her fellow crcaturcs.--
At any rate it is known that In she Romish
Church, st. Valentines day was observed
by making presents to ones dearest friends,
and even now many persons make Nalcn-
tine the pretcnsion for a costly gift. The
English practice, however, always prescrv-
ed primitive simplicity, peasant girls steal
out after night-fall, just as they did five
hundred years ago, shove the loving mis-
siye under the door, shy back to their cot
tage homes, like frightened deer, and wait
with beating hearts for glimpse of the
white paper, which would tell that more
than one nocturnal visit had been made.
Occasionally The slow old postman brought
the anxiously looked for epistlc, and thus
the two pence had to be searched for in all
the broken tea cups in the corner cupboard,
before the poor girl could commence spell
ing out the t's and the. is and the w's,
which conveyed such precious information
to her For in those days, Valentines, tho
rudely scratched on coarse paper, possessed
aquality which few of the most costly can
boast nowadays. Indeed, the more finely
they arc gilt, the less likely arc they to POS
scss it, and that is--truth, sincerity.
1t would have been considered dcsccra-
tlon to have profancd that day by address
ing words of love to any other person than
the one most DEAR and the idea of sending
dozen to as many different giyls, as some
OF our fast young men do, could not have.
entered into their simple imaginations.
Of course, when the habit of truthful
ness is lost, the qualification ofsome of the
smaller vices soon follows, and thus originat-
ed the demand for the so.called "comic"
Valentines, but which are simply carrica-
lures by which the senders manifest q ccr-
tain amount ofspitc, or ill-will, which they
are too cowardly to express in any other
So great nuisance have they become, that
in many families, the daughters arc forbid
den to receive Valentines or send them,
and many persons refuse to take them out,
and thus an old time honorcd custom is in
danger of falling into disuse and disrcpute
from the malicious disposition of a few in
dividuals. We close with the expression
of our kindest wishes to our lady readers, in
the form of II Valentine
"Peace he around thee, wherever thou roycst
| May life be for thee one summers day,
And all that wshest, and all that thou lowest
Come smiling around thy sunny way
As half in shade and half in sun
This world along its path advan6es,
May that side the suns upon .tts+
be all that e'er shall meet thy glanccs ="
DOES AN AMERICAN RULE FRANCE 22..
If there is any truth in the statements lust
made by a Mrs Mercer, of New Orleans,
then such must be the case, for she saws
that the genuine Louis Napoleon, during
his wild carecrin America, was one night
seized with an apoplcctic fit, and died in
her house in Grahd-strcet, New York; that
for fear Of arrest on suspicion of foul play,
his body was buried something q la Sir
Jchn Moore--in the dead Of night the
only difference being that the defunct
Frenchman was cntombed in the cellar;
that aboon companion of his, named Lyman
Bowen, OF Boston; Mass, who had been
educated in France and somuch reseinbled
Louis as frequently to pass for him, imme-
diately after the burial set out for France,
and received by the family as the prodigal
tsenb and has 50 auccessfully gamm6ned tho
.pcopIeas to be ultimately elevated. to the
Throne--and there he now is, the bogus
Emperor Cor. Char. Courier.
!, PRosPERfTY IsSN SEVERE TEsFs rsThe
human heart is Ikea feabherbedlL.it must
berougbly handled and well shaken. to pre-,
vent its becoming. hard and knotty. With
prosperity, comes tho whitening discovery
that opulencQis not happiness, for the shad.
lows around us are the darkest when ,the
sun of our fortuneis brightest. YeSy often,
too, we are only tho more ridiculous as we'll
as unhappy, fcp ,boing tossed in fortunes
blanket, and having .eaehcads turned, by
being thus elevated above those of our fell
! lows IL nlattnis' little toJ In vtntth ,n,onnv