Soon after his marriage, the famous nineteenth century poet and composer Thomas Moore was called away on business. On his return he was not met by his beautiful bride, but by their family doctor. "Your wife is upstairs. But she has asked you not to come up. She has had small-pox. The disease has left her once flawless skin pocked and scarred. She has drawn the shutters, and asked that you never see her again.

Thomas Moore would not listen to the doctor, but bounded up the steps to his wife's room. It was black as night inside. He reached for the gas jets. "No! Don't light the lamps," screamed his wife. "Go! Please Go! This is the greatest gift I can give you now."

Instead of leaving, he spent most of the night writing a love poem, which he then set to music. The next morning, in her darkened bedroom he sang to his wife:

Believe me, if all those your endearing charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and flee in my arms,
Like fairy gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art.
Let thy loveliness fad as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still...

The song ended. His bride arose to her feet, crossed the room and slowly opened the shutters. Love was unafraid of the light of reality. 

Valentine's Day Cards

There Valentine's Day is quite a popuar holiday. This holiday is one of the top three is candy sales. There is also a great number of cards bought for Valentine's Day. Over 1 billion valentine cards will be delivered in the U.S. this year. With the new 1-cent change in postage rates, the U.S. Postal service should rack up an extra $10 million this year. Who is sent these valentine cards? This is the order (ranked from the most to the least) of those who receive these more than 1 billion cards : teachers, children, mothers, wives, and sweethearts.

Valentine verses and greeting are not new to the world today. They were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, when lovers said or sang their valentines. Written valentines began to appear after 1400. The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time. This oldest "valentine" is in the British Museum today. The oldest Valentine's Day card in America dates back to the early 1700's.

Paper valentines were exchanged in Europe where they were given in place of valentine gifts. Paper valentines were especially popular in England. Early valentines were made by hand and were made with colored paper, watercolors, and colored inks There were many different types of handmade valentines, including:

• Acrostic valentines - had verses in which the first lines spelled out the loved one's name
  
• Cutout valentines - made by folding the paper several times and then cutting out a lacelike design with small, sharp, pointed scissors
  
• Pinprick valentines - made by pricking tiny holes in a paper with a pin or needle. creating the look of lace
  
• Theorem or Poonah valentines - designs that were painted through a stencil cut in oil paper, a style that came from the Orient
  
• Rebus valentines - verses in which tiny pictures take the place of some of the words. (an eye would take the place of the word I)
  
• Puzzle Purse valentines - a folded puzzle to read and refold. Among their many folds were verses that had to be read in a certain order
  
• Fraktur valentines - had ornamental lettering in the style of illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages.

LOVE Quotation

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.... The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love... is Hell.

C. S. Lewis