Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-02-14
DAN CUPID'S DAY
Lovers Drop Into Verse and Maidens
Meditate on Marriage.
ALL VOTARIES OF ST. VALENTINE
The Tender Significance of the
Fourteenth of February.
ECIMEN SENTIM ENT
The rose is red,
The violet's blue,
Sugar is sweet
And so are youi


or whereabouts. who receives valentine to-
day bearing the above verse will probably
be as delighted as the advanced Vassar girl
who gets lace and decalcomaniac concoo-
ton In a pasteboard box, with a real poem,
teeming with hints of love, deftly inter
woven with vague metaphysical suggestions,
secreted somewhere in its bewildering in
terror. In either case the result will be
pleasing to old ST. Valentine because he
cares solely for the sentiment that is SUI
preme on his anniversary, and not a whit
for the manner in which 1t may be conveyed
between the sexes. 1t can be truly said that
st. Valentine, at least on the l4th of Feb
ruary, Is king of hearts, with a spoon for a
scepter, and the way he wields his power is
seen in maidens' cheek flushed with pleas
ure, the animated glance of the susceptible
young man, and, to be prosaic in the double
bent back of the letter carrier who carries
the sweet missives from door to door and
grumbles at his load, despite its charac ter.
In the old days st. Valentine was safe
from the callousness of the shop, for
cavaliers spent thrilling hours 9ourting the
muses. and creating tender verses, redolent
with heart perfumes, impossible metaphor
and half-crazy hyperbole, which they wrote
with much labor, in a small hand, on orris-
scented paper, and dispatched with great
| secrecy and decentralization to the object
| Of their alteration, who affected much dainty
surprise at its receipt, and carried it for
days In a bosom, reading it at intervals,
with an accompaniment of signs, that was
altogether romantic and medieval. In the
new days there are few who have recourse
to personally manufactured meter in con-
nection with their valentines The modern
swain goes about it in business-like way,
and considers, among other things, the state
Of his pocketbook. Then he goes to a book
or department store and fingers over a vast
variety of ornate and picturesque articles
with a great deal of paper lace imprisoning
doves, and hearts, and little Cupids, and
smaller angels, In a similar state of dis
habille, with a burning poem printed on the
back; selects one for anywhere from 81 down
to two bits, and sends 1t to it's destination by
a district messenger boy or the United
States mail
such heart hints to those of the opposite
sex ranges between six and twenty-six, in
both genders. After twenty-six a valen-
tine Is seldom sent to any others than
children. A man under twenty-six, who
has trace of the old chivalry in him. and
KNOWS enough of prosody and such things
TO guide the feet of tottering verse, some
times plunges into poesy about this time of
year on his own account, and one young
lady received today, in a well-disguised
hand, this truly touching plea:
ssw S art, dear heart, true heart, mine,
Their, though stormy winds blowing
Ihen though others tears flowing
Over dead and buried blisses-
Graves of VOWS, and tombs Of kisses
Round my soul you will entwine
Joy and rapture all divine.
The chief merit of that verse is that il
hasn't thee" or a thou" in it.
Like everything else in this brutal world,
the sweet, real sentiment of ST. Valentines
day must have it's antithesis, and so the
love tokens that animate and soothe and
satisfy on February IA have their effect
frequently dissipated by the receipt of
cruelty comic valentine Who can imagine
the change in the feelings Of susceptible
W y-o lar inc in
early mail reading like this:
Thou art fair as any flower
That mods in the evening hour.
When thou'rt near me all is gladness
II When leave thee all is sadness.
All, thine eyes like stars soft beamng
Deep into my soul are cleaning,
Filling, thrilling with Joy
Perfect and without alloy.
Think of girl, to repeat, receiving such
heart homage in the early mail, and then
at the noon delivery perusing one like this:
Your You ts aan F0nr FEE but s9g
Your nose is ike piece Of dough-
But such things happen and are happen
Ing today everywhere the day is observed,
for st. Valentine has come to be the pa
tron of satire and sarcasm, much as he
formerly was of sentiment alone. Persons
with distinctive foibles are pretty apt to
have them brought home to them in I'M
| mistakably impressive manner today by
the awful caricatures, with their bitter
rhymed Accomplishments, that command
such prodigal sale under the head Of
comic valentines" Conceit gets body
blows that make it vince, and affectations
to use the commonplace, are fairly ripped
up the back. And while it is all going on
Uncle Sam gleefully enjoys an increased
business in stamps while his gray-uni-
formed minions classify the day along with
Christmas, and wonder why people make
such lunatics of themselves In filling the
mail bags with trash.