February — the month of romance
‘From Your Valentine’

Every February, across the country, lovers exchange candies, flowers, and gifts all in the name of St. Valentine.

Valentine’s Day began in the time of the Roman Empire.

One legend says that it originated with the Feast of Lupercalia. In ancient Rome, February 14 was a holiday to the Goddess of Women and Marriage. The following day, February 15, was the beginning of the Feast of Lupercalia.

The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, on the eve of the festival of Lupercalia, one of the customs  was name-drawing.

The names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man drew a slip with a girl’s name from the jar. The young man then became the partner of that girl for the duration of the festival. Sometimes the pairing of the youths lasted for a year, and often, they fell in love and later married.

Another legend says that St. Valentine, a Roman priest, was martyred for helping couples during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II, Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel had difficulty in recruiting soldiers to join his militia.

He believed that the reason was that Roman men did not want to leave their lovers and families. Hence Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome.

St. Valentine aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples. Claudius then had Valentine jailed for defying him. St. Valentine was beheaded on 14 February.

Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note to the jailer’s daughter, and signed it, “From Your Valentine”.

As the Lupercalia began in the middle of February, the pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome chose Saint Valentine’s Day for the celebration of this new feast, as well as to honour St. Valentine, a sympathetic, heroic, and romantic figure.

So the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines for the coming year arose in this way.

Gradually, February 14 became the date for exchanging love messages.

St. Valentine thus eventually became the patron saint of lovers.

Quotable Quotes

“The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I.”
Karl Liebknecht, famous German socialist, in a speech delivered in 1907.


“Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third.”
Ambrose Bierce, from his Devil’s Dictionary. Published in 1906, the book earned the author the epithet “the wickest man in San Francisco”. 


“The mistakes are all waiting to be made.”
Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956), a chessmaster, speaking about the game’s opening position.


“I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever  I don’t need.”
Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues.

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