WALT WHITMAN.




=St. Valentine's Day=

_February 14_


Custom decrees that on this day the young shall exchange missives in
which the love of the sender is told in verses, pictures, and
sentiments. No reason beyond a guess can be given to connect St.
Valentine with these customs. He was a Christian martyr, about 270 A.D.,
while the practice of sending valentines had its origin in the heathen
worship of Juno. It is Cupid's day, and no boy or girl needs any
encouragement to make the most of it.


=WHO BEGAN IT?=

BY OLIVE THORNE

There's one thing we know positively, that St. Valentine didn't begin
this fourteenth of February excitement; but who _did_ is a question not
so easy to answer. I don't think any one would have begun it if he could
have known what the simple customs of his day would have grown into, or
could even have imagined the frightful valentines that disgrace our
shops to-day.