Valentine (holiday)

“ You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to prove faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things reached Emmy Lou. ”

“ Wooing His Valentine
IF I could speak in phrases fine,
Full sweet the words that I would say
To woo you for my valentine
Upon this February day.
But when I strive to tell you all,
The charms I see in your dear face,
A dumbness on me seems to fall—
O, sweetheart, let me crave your grace!
I fain would say your eyes of blue,
Like violets to me appear;
Shy blossoms, filled with heaven’s dew,
That throw their sweetness far and near.
How tender are your lips of red!
How like a rose each velvet cheek!
How bright the gold upon your head—
All this I’d say, if I could speak. ”

“ Valentine’s Day was kept as a joyous festival, the drawing of a kind of lottery took place, followed by ceremonies not much unlike what is now generally called the game of ‘forfeits.’ Married and single persons were alike liable to be chosen as a valentine, and a present was invariably given to the choosing party. ”

“ Winter had now arrived in all its severity, and the very day selected for the removal of these poor people was that which fills, or was designed to fill, every Christian heart with hope, charity, affection for our kind, and the innocent enjoyment of that festive spirit which gives to the season a charm that throws the memory back upon the sweetest recollections of life—I mean Christmas eve. ”

“ Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. ”

“ For youth to be bold;
So the brave and the fair
May venture to dare,
Like the birds of the air,
Their feelings unfold.
This day of the year,
To the young very dear,
Suggests to the heart
A sweet happiness near;
And a hope bright and gay,
May tempt them to say,
On St. Valentine’s Day,
Words tender and queer.
Shy lovers, begin,
Faint hearts never win,
Nor is it a sin
[66] To love wisely and well;
And the coy and the fair
May be yearning to hear,
At least once a year,
What a lover might tell.
So, gents, your attention ”

“ He says: "My heart will constant prove, Since every beat of it is thine; The sweetest joy of life is love." The birds are mating in the grove— The day is yours, St. Valentine.
What matter that the wind blows chill Through leafless tree and naked vine, That snowdrifts linger on the hill, When warm love makes the pulses thrill? The day is yours, St. Valentine.
[249]
TWO JUNE NIGHTS.
A red rose in my lady's hair, A white rose in her fingers, A wild bird singing low, somewhere, A song that pulses, lingers. ”

“ On the eve of the 14th of February, St. Valentine’s day, the young folks in England and Scotland, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival. An equal number of maids and bachelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men’s billets, and the men the maids’; so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man which she calls hers. ”

“ And be my chosen Valentine.
What mortal on thee without rapture can gaze,
Whose form so angelic such graces displays?
Such virtue, such beauty, so noble an air,
Our heart must enslave, and our senses ensnare
O cease, then, dear maid, so enchanting to be,
O list to thy lover who doats upon thee.
When evening sets in, when the world is at rest,
Calm reflection we most can enjoy:
While the stillness around us at once gives a zest,
To the thoughts which no objects decoy.
Then how sweet ’tis to muse on the time that hath
If in love, or in friendship ’twere past ”

“ Oysters in heart-shaped pattie shells, heart-shaped sandwiches, heart cakes, and bonbons, and ice cream in the form of hearts, will make a very nice Valentine supper, and there should be a dainty Valentine souvenir at each plate. ”

“ His half-dozen Christmas papers dwell, with his characteristic love of the past, on the superior honesty, kindliness, and joy of the old holiday customs. No refinement of elegance can replace, he maintains, the family gatherings, the perfecting of sympathies, the realization of mutual dependence, and the increase of mutual affection, instinct in the ancient hospitality. ”

“ THE PILLERS. I.—THE NIGHTINGALE. SINCE the first cuckoo, weeks ago, their talk had been of little but the coming of the anemones and bluebells, the pairing of the birds in hedgerow and brake and copse, and all the merry bustle of the spring of the year; so that you might have imagined that, hale men and buxom women as well as the younger sort, the posy-verses of the last Valentine’s Day had left them all poetical crazy. ”

“ And, consequently, if, as is very likely, our Valentine’s Day is an English rendering of le jour des Valentins, we ought to write Valentines’ Day, as meaning the day of valentines, and not Valentine’s Day = the day of Valentine. And the absence of the word Saint points to this conclusion also, for I do not know that in this Protestant country a saint has been robbed of his saintship, as he has occasionally been in Catholic France. ”

“ Should the titled stranger or the ragged beggar knock, throw wide open the doors of thy hospitality; and while prattling infants recount the joys of the season, and school-boy striplings pursue their holiday sports, and gray-haired men who have traversed the wide world over, tell how in all their wanderings they have never passed a Christmas from home; he will turn his thoughts with a melancholy pleasure to the distant fireside beyond the sea, and to the friends who are gathered there, and wonder where the wanderer is spending his Christmas. ”

“ You'll be my Valentine.
Though a female of spirit, I am not inclined
To go after the Devil, a husband to find,
For I fear if with you I a bargain should strike,
I might have a reception more warm than I like,
Since 'tis very well known to us poor little souls,
You love to be "calling us over the coals;"
Though my heart's in a flame, yet I cannot design
My whole body's consumption for such, Valentine. ”

“ The very presence of a lengthened festivity—for festivity can never be solitary—would, apart from its sacred causes, promote these wholesome effects. The extended space of time over which this festival is spread, the protracted holiday which it creates, points it out for the gathering together of distant friends whom the passing nature of an occasional and single celebration would fail to collect from their scattered places of the world. ”

“ Valentine's Day the children gathered around the sitting-room table and began to make valentines. They had paper of various colors and pictures cut from old magazines. They worked very hard, and some of the valentines thus manufactured were as good as many that could be bought.
"Oh, I saw just the valentine for Freddie," whispered Nan to Bert. "It had a fireman running to a fire on it." ”

“ His last words came out almost tremulously.
"Sometimes we are mistaken in our thoughts," responded Valentine. "I should like best to stay on in my husband's house. Six months will not be long passing; and—father. I have some news for you. In July—if I live until July—God is going to give me a child—Gerald's child and mine. I should like it to be born here." ”

“ This legend embodies the true Christmas spirit which realizes, with a rush of love to the heart, the divinity in every one of "the least of these" our brethren. Selfishness is rebuked, the feeling of universal brotherhood is fostered, while the length of this holiday season by encouraging the reunion of families and of friends, provides a wonderful rallying place for early affections. A wholesome and joyous current of religious feeling flows through the entire season to temper its extravagance and regulate its mirth. ”

“ I’ll bet he’s the one! Mean old thing, to bring tears to the eyes of my little great-auntie after all these years! (Puts valentines hack in drawer, and shuts it rather vigorously, letting one drop, unnoticed, to the floor.) Men and boys are queer creatures, anyhow. I’m glad I’m a girl! And I’m glad I live now, instead of forty years ago. Why, I got more valentines, I do believe, to-day, than Aunt Polly has in all her life. Why, I dropped one! (Picks it up.) Amos was a little fellow when he sent this, I guess. ”

“ What day-dreams of hope and happiness--of life being one perpetual holiday, with no master and no mistress to grant or withhold it--of every Sunday being a Sunday out--of pure freedom as to curls and ringlets, and no obligation to hide fine heads of hair in caps-- what pictures of happiness, vast and immense to her, but utterly ridiculous to us, bewilder the brain of the little housemaid at number six, all called into existence by the wedding at the corner! ”

“ Cupid and the Fairy should precede the procession; next should come one of the tiny Pages, with the ring on a velvet cushion. Bluebell and Rosebud follow, as flower girls, then the Queen, followed by her Maidens, two by two. No change is necessary in any of the costumes but to add a long veil of mosquito netting to the Queen’s costume. At the altar, St. Valentine meets her, and they arrange themselves as for the ceremony, the Bride and Groom kneeling before the Clergyman. The curtain may fall on this tableau, or they may rise, and march out, to the wedding march, if desired. ”

“ Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one!
Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this season of the year? A Christmas family-party! We know nothing in nature more delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten; social feelings are awakened, in bosoms to which they have long been strangers ”

“ In London this day is ushered in by the thundering knock of the postman at the different doors, through whose hands some thousands of Valentines pass for many a fair maiden in the course of the day. Valentines are, however, getting very ridiculous, if we may go by the numerous doggrels that appear in the print-shops on this day. As an instance, I transmit the reader a copy of some lines appended to a Valentine sent me last year. Under the figure of a shoemaker, with a head thrice the size of his body, and his legs forming an oval, were the following rhymes:—
Do you think to be my Valentine? ”

“ Each hour I pray that I may meet
The faithful love of thine.
Ye gentle gales that waft my sighs.
Go to the youth for whom they rise,
And win him to approve my prayer,
That he will love and end my care.
Oh! would he deign on me to smile,
All my wo it would beguile;
Blest indeed the days of mine,
When passed with such a Valentine.
Sweet youth, be mine, thy charms divine
Subdue my stubborn heart;
At Hymen’s shrine, oh! call me thine,
And never, never part.
Let sordid mortals search for wealth,—
This never shall be my employ ”

“ Christmas was not only a worldly holiday, a heart festival, a children’s festival, but was besides—yes, first and foremost, a religious festival, where every joy, [106] every bliss has deeper base and root. And as he passed on to the text for the day, he dwelt strongly upon the gentle impressions from the Christmas of their childhood; and before the eyes of the parish he summoned the charming pictures of the babe in the manger, of shepherds and angels and offering kings, while the words fell from the pulpit mildly and tenderly, as if in childlike ecstasy. ”

“ Arthur looked a long time at the row of little valentines and then he said, “These two.” One had a little curly-haired child carrying a big bunch of flowers in her hand, and the verse read:
“This bunch of roses I'm bringing,
Is a valentine for you,
To show that in storm or in sunshine
My love is always true.”
And the other valentine had a picture of two little boys carrying a big basket between them, and this was the little verse:
“What do you s'pose our basket holds? ”

“ Valentine, and I'm in scribbling mood.
Pray, are you, sir, in love, or not? what's more, in love with me?
Pray, answer, for I'll frankly own I feel a love for thee.
Love has dropt in,—I know not how,—so, 'tis my heart's design
To choose you, sir, to be my beau, my constant Valentine.
What eyes, mouth, and nose! who d'ye think, would incline
To choose such an object for—Sweet Valentine.
From such a grim figure, I'm sure, any day,
I can't wonder Cupid is riding away.
E'en the donkey he rides appears frightened to see
An ugly old fellow, so much uglier than he. ”

“ By this means each has two valentines: but the man sticks faster to the valentine that is fallen to him, than to the valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love. ”

“ One comfort I had in all this—if my valentine could not reach him, that of no other female could; and my offer is sure to be first, though I shouldn't wonder if that girl who sent him her card tied round a canary bird's neck might try. She's forward enough, anyway.
Then, there is another comfort—Valentine's Day don't cover the whole Leap Year, and there are other men than the great Grand Duke in the world. We females have a whole twelvemonths to try our luck in. ”