The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1883-02-24
TAKING THE ROMANCE OUT OF VAL
ENTlNES.
Now York SUM-

INew York SUM-
"A Poetess" has been advertising to
write valentine poetry to order. "She
is behind time" said, yesterday, one
of the principal manufacturers of val
entines, "for this season, and little
early for next. There are not many
valentine writers, and l don't think
that if you hunted them over you
would find one distinguished name
among them, or even one that you had
ever heard of before. Most of my
original ones are written by q lady in
Bangor, Maine. She writes also for
another house. Some of her relatives
were in the business, and she possessed
natural talents for it; so in that way
she got into it, and, once in, keeps
right along. The late a. J. Fisher,
who was leading publisher of valen-
tines, used to write his own mostly. !
don't know exactly what his best hold
was, whether it was the purely comic,
the vengefuliy satirical, or the gushing
Iy sentimental. The lady in Bangor
is best in the last line. It doesn't re-
quire really very powerful poetic
genius to grind out valentine poetry.
When you get an idea fit for Il verse
you can sort Of model it over few
times. F'rinstance:
GAS on the gold tho diamond bright doth
shine,
So thou upon my heart doth glow, my
Valentino.
"And then again, by slight twist
of the wrist, you get:
cas- in the gold tho ruby's CLEAN doth
shine,
SO in my heart thy image sits, my valcn-
tine.
"Or, by Il slight wrench to the crank:
Like the sparkling glow in tho juice Of
the vino,
Arc thy eyes in my heart, my sweet Valcn-
"Same idea, you see; reels off just as
valentine poetry we sort of pick up.
Newspapers sometimes have poetical
fancies in them that we happen to
drop on, ond occasionally we can chop
out good chunk of heart thrOb and
burning love where you'd hardly no.
tice it, and where the poet who origi-
nally wrote it would himself be sort of
surprised at the discovery. or course
we might doctor it up Il little-make it
trump in q little better for our uses,
you know-but we would keep the
original idea fairly, nevertheless"
Another dealer in tho most eXpen-
sive sort of imported and handmade
valentine said "There is hardly any
novelty in the imported lacc-paper
valentines. The same things that
were good enough for us when we were
young and spooney, if made over fresh,
are good enough for those who are
young and spooney now, and will be
for their grandchildren when they be-
gin to get soft about the heart fifty
years from now. But for few years
past there has been a growing fancy
for hand-painted valentines, some of
which are very expensive, and for
them there is some demand for origi-
nal poetry. That is probably the trade
that 'the poctess' is striking for.
Acrostics are popular in them. They
are poorly paid for as rule, for they
are not much in demand-the verses,
| mean. The hand-painted valentines
are we'll paid for, you may be sure, and
their manufacture is conducted in quite
private way. But the people who
order them, as a general thing, grind
out their own lovesick doggercl, and
no matter how bad it is the girl who
gets it will think it divine if q diamond
ring is part Of the valentine,as it some.
times is. That poetess won't go to
Europe next summer on the profits of
her valentine writing, I'll bet"
Alexandria Gazette, January 90:
MIR. James Guthrie, a prosperous farm
g FL