Sunday, 10 May 2026

Valentine card from Bath to Charterhouse Hinton, 1854

The Valentine Card below was sent from Bath to Charterhouse Hinton, in an envelope postmarked on the back in Bath on 14th February 1854.


The envelope that contained was addressed to "Miss Jane Bailey, Mr Saml Bailey".  This would be the correct form of address to an unmarried young lady, with Mr Saml Bailey being the father of Miss Jane Bailey. 

According to the 1851 Census of the parish of Charterhouse Hinton, Bath, Mr Samuel Bailey, 64, was a farmer of 87 acres with 6 labourers, married to Mary Bailey, 57, with one unmarried daughter, Mary Jane Bailey, aged 17 at the time of the census in 1851.  They also had a servant, Emma Frapwell, the same age as their daughter Mary.  Mary Jane Bailey would have been 20 in 1854 when this Valentine Card was sent.

The miniature envelope on the front of the Valentine Card contained this letter ....

... and also a writtten message:

According to Google AI, the handwritten lines inside the Valentine card appear in various 19th century books, often within sections on "The Poetry of Flowers".  The full poem is as follows:

"It is not well amid this race to move,
And shut the heart to sympathy and love;
It is not well to scorn inferior minds,
And pass these by as they were autumn winds.
Pride may become thee, as the veil a nun,
But oh! they love thee not whom thou dost shun.
And days may come to thee when human love
Thou will desire all earthly things above;
And then wilt mourn that in the days of pride
Thou hast not won some true heart to thy side.
Wilt mourn that now thy rank and wealth have flown
Thou'rt left to suffer and to die alone."


 

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