Rhode Island American And Gazette

St. Valentine's Day. "From all corners of the earth they come to kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing Saint."

Of all the numerous Saints in the old Calendar, few have acquired so remarkable an immortality as St. Valentine, whose praises have been hymned as sweetly by the feathered tribe, as they have been chaunted by his rational worshippers. It is an assured fact, and one that has frequently been remarked by ornithologists, that about the 14th of February, birds begin to seek their mates for the purpose of building: the little songsters announce to Creation, their joy at an approaching spring, and fly from bough to bough, in search of the feathered Valentine, with whom the petty house-keeping may be commenced. The example of the birds was judged worthy of imitation in the olden time, and youth sought maid, and maid sought youth, in the innocent sport that often led to a joyous reality; the aspiration of the lover was conveyed in a whisper upon one day in the year, when coyness and bashfulness were somewhat abated, and mutual confidence was created in the name of the good St. Valentine; those who were not bold enough to dare the question, penned the hope in the touching strain of metaphor, in whose service Cupids, hearts, darts, and all the etceteras of Hymen's paraphernalia, were pressed—the custom of writing Valentines gradually came into general use, until the 14th became a day as remarkable for the transmission of amatory epistles, as for the chirruping of robin-red-breasts, cock-sparrows and Jenny wrens.

To such a height had this letter-writing attained a few years ago in England, that thirty or forty thousand additional letters, were delivered from the London Post Office alone, the country towns yielding a proportionate number also of these favors of Cupid. Talk of correspondences on other subjects! forty thousand letters of courtship from one city, breathing passion and constancy in every line—forty thousand vows in one post office—think of that gentle reader, and imagine how busy Venus must have been in watching over her inspired votaries. In this country, where Republican rule is too stern to permit the growth of much frivolity in matters of the heart, we have never laid many offerings at the shrine of Valentine; who have no particular day for wooing, or any great predilection for allegorical services when in choice of a wife, and hence our Calendar does not grant so distinguished a place to the Saint of the 14th. We care not for the twittering of larks or magpies, but court without copying, and wed when we like. St. Valentine is not, however, treated with total neglect by Republicans—the Bachelors of this city are accustomed to assemble upon the eve of his day, and celebrate the anniversary of their patron; the fair, the young, and the beautiful are not wanting to form many a happy pair, and the inspiring note of music sounds in his honor as they thread the mazy dance."

Now may we hear the gay laugh, or if we pry into a corner, perchance the soft confession, and now may we behold the singular spectacle of youths and maidens paying their devoirs to a Saint, whom they would all be ready to desert to-morrow.—Truly, after all, St Valentine is every where hardly used; he is supplicated by continual offerings, teazed by constant applications, and yet deserted on the first opportunity. Hymen is his bitterest foe, and too successfully makes sad inroads into his camp, often lightning the fire on his altar with the heart of some confirmed bachelor, who is thus converted into a Benedict almost without his own consent.