I intend firmly to ignore St. Valentine’s day
Letters of Love
I intend firmly to ignore St. Valentine’s day. The neglectful saint need expect no truck with me.
Marjorie Rawlings
Letter to Norton S. Baskins
14th February 1944
—The Private Marjorie: The Love Letters of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to Norton S.Baskin
In forty-eight hours it will be Valentine’s day. I shall send you no memento upon this tender occasion, for I find myself quite unable to love you any more on Monday than I do on Sunday or Tuesday. Hence a valentine would, in any event, be an understatement.
Dalton Trumbo
Letter to his wife, Cleo
12th February 1949
—Additional Dialogue: The Letters of Dalton Trumbo
I return your Valentine, but what a farce! Cold and gloom and sleet; no lovemaking in prospect; every nose nipped—my oldest friend, Sibyl Roskill, burnt to death; three corpses on the road going to Cambridge, three more in a field coming back from Rodmell—all the same we remain brisk, and have just been at Cambridge for the weekend.
Virginia Woolf
Letter to Clive Bell
16th February 1931
—The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume 4
I miss you so. Your long letter (yes I read it all, read it twice) came yesterday, and today a Valentine. But you still aren’t well; and the house is full of paint-fumes. There are 100 things to say; but mainly that I love you very much. It is hard to think what the future will bring; and just as hard to think what the past has brought. A weariness between us, a coldness—which I think may both have been forms of a subtle distrust: a doubt as to whether either of us really had the other’s good at heart. Maybe it’s age, but I don’t imagine I shall ever again try to imagine a life lived with anyone but you—together or apart—and so, yes, if you want me, I’m your Valentine for another 20 years at least.
James Merrill
Letter to David Jackson
16th February 1974
—A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill
I suppose you have written a few & received a quantity of Valentines this week. Every night I have looked & yet in vain for one of Cupid’s messengers. Many of the girls have received very beautiful ones & I have not quite done hoping for one. Surely my friend Thomas, has not lost all his former affection for me. I entreat you to tell him I am pining for a Valentine. I am sure I shall not very soon forget last Valentine week nor any the sooner, the fun I had at that time. Probably, Mary, Abby & Viny have received scores of them from the infatuated wights in the neighborhood while your highly accomplished & gifted elder sister is entirely overlooked.
Emily Dickinson
Letter to her brother, Austin
17th February 1848
—The Letters of Emily Dickinson
For the first time in my recollection, Paris shopkeepers have mentioned this saint. Florists have signs about him out front, among the tulips, explaining that you should buy a pot of blooms (at three hundred francs) to send to your beloved. So business has grasped the value of hagiography here, finally, as connected with this particular saint; God knows the Church has made money on its relics for centuries, and why Valentine, of whom I know nothing at all, was overlooked on the Continent, I don’t know. When I was a child, the American valentines were prettier, more formal, made of paper lace like ladies’ panties or frilled petticoats, and with hearts and flowers of colored cardboard stuck on, here and there, among the rudimentary lingeries setting. Sentiment and the sartorial, combined.
Janet Flanner
Letter to Natalia Danesi Murray
14th February 1946
—Darlinghissima: Letters To A Friend
Dear Kids, all and some. Here it is, Valentine’s Day, and by George I entirely forgot to send off valentines to you. My sorrow, and here I apologize on my bended knees, nose to the floor. It’s hard to know about these things in advance—how was I to know two weeks ago that Valentine’s Day was two weeks off? If I were the prince of whales, no doubt I’d have an equerry or some such dignitary whose duty it was to tell me in the morning, when he brought me my matutinal tea and my shaving-brush, “Your ’Ighness, beggin’ your pardon, but a fortnight hence is Wallingtime’s Day: remember to send floral tokens to your mother the Queen and your father, his royal ’ighness, the Kink.” But not being the prince of whales, nor even of minnows, there’s nothing I can do but devote my whole life to writing apologies for these unfortunate oversights.
Conrad Aiken
Letter to his three children
14th February 1928
—Selected Letters of Conrad Aiken
I want to tell you about the Valentine I got, the most beautiful box of flowers I have ever seen, I think: I don’t know who sent them, there was no sign of a card, but they came from Saltford’s, so it looks as if it were some girl here. I am crazy to know, of course, because she certainly ought to be thanked. It is an enormous corsage of English violets and orchids, it completely covers the front of me,—it is beautifully made up with some lovely tan-green leaves, and there are baby orchids attached to the long ribbon streamers. I can’t help thinking of the tremendous cost,—these things do hit me now! You see, there are three great orchids, and orchids are two dollars apiece, and then there are about a peck of English violets, besides the little orchids, and the wonderful making of the corsage. When Fran, my room-mate first looked at it she said,—“Well, I hate to think of the pair of boots you could buy with that.” I don’t see how it could have been much under ten dollars, and it may have been more. Just think of being able to do that,—and to send no card! I wish you could see it. It is still perfectly fresh,—I keep it sprinkled and in its box—a foot square!—covered with oiled paper. The combination of shades is exquisite,—the deep purple of the violets, and the orchids, shading from palest lavender, somehow, into crimson on the tongues. Oh, just think of having a Valentine like that! Frances said, “It’s really almost too bad to get such wonderful flowers at college. Nothing that your fiancé could possibly give you in the way of a corsage would give you much of a thrill after that.” And it’s true. Except that one always gets a thrill over flowers.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Letter to her family
17th February 1917
—Into the World’s Great Heart: Selected Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Support Letters of Note…
~ May all the love that's in the air today reign over us all and warm us up ~
Thank you for introducing me to Darlinghissima! Happy Valentine's Day to you.