Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-11
ST. VALENT TINES DAY
q
Decline and Fall Of Pagan
Superstition.
THE COMIC OF TODAY
EFFECT ON CUSTOM OBSERVED BY
OUR GRANDPARENTS.
Festival Meant Much in the Days of
Long Ago-Love Fraught
Missives.

Written for The Evening Star.
How have the mighty TALENT What
change has come over the feast of good
Saint Valentine, even since Sam Weller, jr.,
sent that message of glowing love from
the Blue Boar Inn to Mary, the housemaid.
In those days the festival meant much.
Our grandparents, more particular than we
in matters of the affections, marched a
mighty army in the train of the ancient
bishop. The post office paid its carriers
half DAVIS extra wages because of heavy
loads of love-fraught missives. In those
days a girl counted her valentines the
debutante of the present does her bou-
Guets.
The Julia of the twentieth century has
scant time for sweet sentiments. These
are express days-of automobile frtations
and marriages very much la mode. Who
has so much as a moment to think OF the
neglected grave of Valentine, martyr? If
he is remembered at all it is only because
he is made guy of-an atroclous penny
guy glaring out in cheap colorS from the
windows of little shops. Amid the com
les may be shown here ana there sugSeS-
ton of the misadventureS OF a hylng-ma-
chine courtshp or of some wireless wooing,
but the valentines of an older generation,
halowed by our grandpapas ana grand
Tammas when they We're young and senti-
~,
There is a fasciatng mystery as to just
which one of the many saints of that lame
Valentines day originally supposed to
commemorate, but popular opinion now in
clines toward the bishop who was martyred
in Rome during the reign of Claudius.
Others tell that valentine sending took its
origin from pagan ceremonies. already an
cent when the churchman who was one
day to die in the arena had not yet so
much as thought of taking orders. His
feast the scholarly assure u.s. was intend
ed to supplant those earlier anti-Christian
rites, but it did so only in that it gave a
new color and a fresh turn to lovemaking,
which, after all, needs neither parentage
nor justification.
In medieval Europe the saint was held
in highest honor. Youth sought his Valen-
tine at dawn, singing love lays beneath her
window till she should open her lattice and
accept his VOWS of years devotion Across
in old England lads and lassies met togeth-
er on ST. Valentines eve and chose part
nerS for the rustic festivities of the morrow
by drawing names from a bowl. Here, as
is easy to guess often and often lay the
first steps to marriage itself and in this
may be found the seeding of the more
modern institution of a proposal lurking in
the missve sent through the prosaic mails
1t was in merrie England too, that st.
Valentine first found verses written under
his patronage. They were stately-styled
and anonymous, but they We're sincere-till
France saw what was going on and set to
work In characteristic fashion to gid re
fined gold SO We're born those lacy af-
fairs, those unpleasantly fat cupids, those
tedious bows and arrows. 1t was then but
step to insipid sugar hearts, and at last
plush placques. AS to the verse, it grew
beautifully worse with each succeeding
year, till the inevitable occurred and st.
Valentines messengers were buried beneath
weight of costliness and stupidity bulki-
ness and vulgarity. Who would send an
avowal of passion on the back of a pic
toral postcard, or try to convey an express
cir Of rt,z
dminutive and unclothed darby dancing
ippantly upon a half-eaten watermelon?
Valentine of Today
The valentine of today is a box of candy
a book, some violets, or a pinky, useless
favor, which carries down old tradition
only by accident. and is no more than a
passing pleasantly between acquaintance
What would Dan Cupid have said had he
lowered in the New York post office last
year, and so have seen the mail clerks
Sinking at valentine @ that had travel
ed all the way north from Savannah--a sill
yer dollar, forsooth with a stamp on one
side and the address pasted on the other,
Turn back few score years, and all the
western world is found battered from head
a heel in a pretty bondage of true lovers
knots. Hank to the words of the gentle
Ella, he spoke through the quaint old
London Indicator of February IA, 1921:
This is the day on which those charm
ing little missives yclept valentines cross
and interiors; each other at every street
and turning. The weary and all foreSpent
two penny postman sinks beneath load of
delicate embarrassments not his own. 1t
is scarcely credible to what an extent this
ephemeral courtship is carried on in this
loving town, to the great enrichment of
porters, and detriment of knockers and
bell wires. In these little visual interpreted
tons no emblem is so common as the heart
that little three-cornered exponent of all
-. ,,,1 fnnr bn md d
ing heart; it is twisted and tortured into
more allegories and Alterations than an
opera hat.
And the poets, From the day of old
Chaucer have they sung of Valentine, that
tabled first of the laureates having left
for us:
Saint Valentine, thou art full high on loft,
Which drivest away the long nghte's black,
Tnus singer smalle foues for thy sake,
Win have they cause for TO gladden. oft
Since each of them recovered hath his make:
Full blissful may they sing when they awake
Shakespeare bore .witress to the Gus
torn of looking for your valentine through
poor Ophelia's plant:
Good morning! 'Tis St Valentines day.
And l maid at your window,
To be your valentine.
Drayton and Montgomery told of the
days dongs and Gay recalls how a lads
valentine was the first lass he in the
an inmate of his house-and
a maids valentine the first youth. SCOTS
Fair Maid of Perth relates, with chaf-
acteristic scholarlness, the rites of the
Saints day in Scotland, and old Samuel
Pepys in 1861, wrote in that marvellous
diary OF his:
MY wife to Sir Batten's, and there sat
while; he having yesterday sent my wife
half dozen pairs of gloves and pair of
silk stockings and garters for her valen-
tine"
And again, two years later, comes this
even more typical entry:
This evening my wife did with great
pleasure shew me her stock of Jewels, in
crease by the ring she hath made lately
as my valentines gift this year. Turker
stone set with diamonds and | am
glad of it, for it is fit the wretC should
have something to content herself with"
Usages of an OLDER Day.
The old and honored customs of the day
are almost endless. One Nilsson, a learned
traveller, who died in England not quite
two centuries ago. describes thus the anus
ing practices of his time:
ION the even of the 14th of February, the
young folks in England and Scotland, by a
very ancient custom, celebrate festival.
An equal number of maids and bachelors
t1,nt. appE Hrrft h tic or har f1.Ita