Name/Title
Newspaper clipping The Morn of St. ValentineEntry/Object ID
000733Tags
Unknown NewspaperScope and Content
The Morn of St. Valentine.
Well what is that to us or to you? Not much, indeed, if we be old, dried-up, dull-hearted, unsympathetic, solitary, loveless and joyless curmudgeons, or forbidding “envious prudes,” who contemn the innocent natural attachment of youth and maiden to each other. But St. Valentine, in the good old times, in the “ages of faith,” knew much better than such pseudo-Protestants, or pseudo-Puritans, the stuff of which wholesome human life is made. This day is consecrated, by ancient popular tradition, in merry England that used to be, and probably also with a certain degree of ecclesiastical sanction or toleration, to the festive celebration of betrothal rites, private or public, which that genial personage is deemed to regard with a peculiar benevolent countenance of approval. Some curious archaeologist may here interpose, for the twentieth time, with stale particulars of biographical information concerning a bishop of this name fifteen centuries ago; and with a conjectural explanation of the blunder in language, by which his name was converted into the Provencal or old French equivalent for a chivalrous lover’s refined and elegant manner of courtship. We do not care to hear any more of that just now, while looking at this happy pair of lovers; the gentle damsel, who looks out from the open window of her father’s mansion; and the manly young fellow, dressed like a country squire of the last century, who has ridden over from his own place, so early in the morning, to give her a flower, and to assure her that he is “her own True Valentine.” This is “the old, the fashion,” of life’s best earthly treasure, discovered anew by every succeeding generation of mankind; and we trust that there are many who shall find it surely theirs, on the anniversary of St. Valentines in the present year.