How very absurd and medieval on his part to send me a

valentine!
A real valentine with, I have no doubt, birds and hearts and cupids
and true lover's knots--and--arrows on it. I do not think I shall be
entirely satisfied unless it has a heart penetrated by an arrow.
There is something about a heart, in vivid color, penetrated by an
arrow, that expresses an amount of sentimental suffering
otherwise impossible to delineate.
I used to be very fond of the openwork ones over colored paper,
but I think now I should be able to do without the colored paper.
My tastes have softened down with the faded aestheticism of the
age. But I should like some of those appropriate legends "stuck"
here and there; something simple but convincing, such as "True
Love," or "Mine is Thine," "Think of Me," or "From a True Friend."
I remember that even to the uncritical eye of youth these
aphorisms had rather the air of being attached as a work of
supererogation after the real valentine was finished.
They suggest conventionalized emotion in a way that is charming,
and Dick and I both like our emotion conventionalized.