Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1885-02-26
DEAD VALENTINES.
CUPID'S DARTS THAT FELL
SHORT OF THEIR MARK.
Post Officials Ruthlessly Trampling
upon the Vehicle of Sacred Secrets
Which Many a Heart Priced More
Dearly than Life.

upon the Vehicle of Sacred Secrets
Which Many a Heart Priced More
Dearly than Life.
BY EDWARD PAYsoN HALL.
For Tie Sentinel.
The Dead Letter Office at Wash
ingtch is said to reveal more rare and
mirth-prevoking as we'll as more seri-
Gus and sorrowfeI themes than any
other edifce of it. size in America.
But a peep "behind the scenes" in any
large city post-office, which has not a
special delivery for the sacred, tender
loving missives, the precious Valen-
tines, the next week after that includ-
ing the 18th of February, may dis
close one of the most humiliating and
saddening sights the eye of all intel
lectual and sentient observer ever
rested upon.
Their day being past-not more
than a 1.-THE Of the thousands dropped
into the door-boxes having found an
ownership-cast aside as useless en-
cumbrances Of Office space-spurned,
spit upon, trodden under foot, the bal
ance, en- masse, are now no more than
the garbage in the street cutters, the
futtering rays of the uptown beggar,
or last years forest leaves on which
the children are gamboling in the cor
ners of the parks.
Piled ignominiously upon the floor,
in great stacks, according to size, from
the dimensions of a large atlas to that
Of an ordinary square envelope, lie the
delicate, unfortunate, never-to- be-de-
livered, dead Valentines. How many
a heart, having selected one from the
shops with tremulous and solicitous
care, and very frequently having pur-
chased it at considerable cost, having
deposited it confidently in Uncle
Sans drop-letter box, with the glow
ing pride and hope of the warm young
lover, intent to please the only being
in all the wide world he or she is fully
devoted to please, would quiver with
indignant regret to see its cherished
epistle trampled and torn beaeath the
heels of the packing clerks and bohe-
mian porters, ritied Of any pec,tniarily
valuable article, and transferred
amidst an armfull of its wrecked COM
peerr 20 dry-goods box directed to a
rag merchant or the nearest paper
mill! Such is life! To-day hope tin-
furls our banner to the breezes-to-
morrow, wrapped in that flag, we are
laid away in our coffins !!
BY your leave, Messieurs Clerks,
and with that tender, sympathetic Gu
riosity absolutely foreign to the idea
of sacrilege, | will pick up and open
two or three of these dead missives
Ah! here is one with a gold ring in it,
plain but valuable, brightly burnish-
ed ring, about the size Of a lady's en-
gagenent finger. It lies in little
nest of catalpa blossoms, surrounded
by these words in the bold, dashing
hand Of a young business man: "Our
souls are united in an eternal circlet-
wear this as witness of faith" All
may go right; but here is dead ring
what if it be an omen of deceased
love2
Here is another-a gross and fool
ish comic pictorial, with its wouldbe
funny satirical verses to match. There
are scores of these-no loss to any
body and rather gain in their de.
mise--but they afe only as one in a
hundred-the other ninety-nine hun.
dredths of the mass are true valentines
serious offerings Of one young person
to another.
Don't talk to me in an idle, voluble
and conventional drawl about this be-
ing nothing but tawdry and mawkish
sentimentalism! The world is made
OF love-the very foundation of socie.
ty are propped by its frailest tokens
The day of little things stretches from
J eternity to eternity!
Here is one from lady to a gent
leman-it contains lock of such hail
as renowned artists of the brush ano
chisel have vainly striven to metamor
phose into paint and marble, around
the brows of the Venus de Medici, the
Iphigenia and the Greek Slave. Not
word on the fair sheet of delicate
blue writing paper which encloses it
Perhaps he would have easily recog
nized the donor by the handwriting
of the address and the matches
beauty of the gift. But what circular
spots of a deeper, darker blue, than it
surface are these upon the paper
Alas! 1t is onlyt to evident that they
are the footsteps of tears p
| Mt. VeTnon, N. c., FEB. 20.