Only the British could muddle a scheme so simple, making of it something at once grossly sentimental and blusteringly ineffectual. Like the French, they based their ritual on the principle of first look, but, since they neglected to specify that both parties should be eligible, ladies of the house often found themselves looking to the 4-year-old son of their chambermaid as a valentine. All of which was perfectly adorable, but required that courtship be abandoned in favor of gift swapping, and that allowances be made for husbands and wives to make valentine's pacts on the side. By the time Samuel Pepys kept his famed diary, Valentine's Day had become more taxing to follow than the business of the Home Office:

14th February 1668 -- Up, being called up by Mercer [Mrs. Pepys' maid], who came up to be my Valentine, and I did give her a guinney in gold for her Valentine's gift. There comes Roger Pepys betimes, and comes to my wife, for her to be his Valentine, whose Valentine I was also, by agreement to be her so every year; and this year I find it likely to cost #4 or #5 in a ring for her which she desires.

If the French can credit themselves with streamlining all emotional turbulence out of courtship, the British must stand accused of making a public mockery of it. The Victorians didn't have to de-sex the holiday to suit their century, it had long before neutered itself.

Still they tried, generally by composing insipid verse. Plagiarism already had a tradition among eligible bachelors who, dimly aware that love was the order of the day, hadn't the social grace to feign it on their own. By 1700, publishers had found as strong a market for love poems meant to be copied as for those meant to be read. The verse contained within tomes such as "The Complete British Valentine Writer," sold on Fleet Street no less, as "A complete Set of LETTERS, VALENTINES, &c. Proper for almost every TRADE in Town or Country, with their Answers," was intended to be cribbed onto hand-drawn cards, but, what with everyone using the same sources, it can hardly have seemed worth the bother.

Which explains why printers, first in England and later America, started manufacturing cards wholesale. The postmaster dreaded the coming of February, and fretted about obscenity. Judging from the prosody, he was right to worry, even if the only real offense of such spayed doggerel was aesthetic:

Could such a fate as this be mine,
'Twould be a glimpse of love divine,
And never should I seek to gain
Release from love's delicious chain.

At least love then, however falsely, claimed divinity. Today Cupid has given way to Snoopy. At Walgreen's, Charlie Brown and Lucy also romance the card rack, where categories include not only NEW LOVE and HUSBAND, but also GRANDFATHER and DAUGHTER. There are valentines to be given out in school as well, boxes containing enough cards for the whole class, often with a special one for the teacher, featuring Pokimon, Barney, even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Still, these seem sophisticated when compared to the baby colors of those candy hearts: Blue for a boy and pink for a girl. How sweet.

Then again, as Valentine's Day, ever juvenile, regresses all the way to nursery school, why shouldn't children's candy, sweet and chalky as medicine, be our placebo of choice? Even as they say so little, those candy hearts tell too much: Love is simply a first step to progeny, passion merely a trick of genetics, the whole of courtship an elaborate staging for the money shot. With those cards we buy our children to give their classmates -- even the fat kid, the ugly girl and the boy who wets his bed -- we start them early down the road toward insincerity, but when we give those candy hearts to each other, we wind up being too honest by half about the human condition.

So, what remains of romance this Valentine's Day? Those candy hearts, with their two-word prescriptions, provide as accurate a diagnosis as any. There's BE MINE, of course, although it's not nearly so common anymore as the telecommunications series, which includes CALL ME, PAGE ME, FAX ME, EMAIL ME and 1800 CUPID. Even those candies that don't conspire to put untold circuitry and fiber-optic cable between prospective lovers are noncommittal (HOW NICE), or uncompromising (MY WAY).

Eat the entire bag (candy hearts are fat-free), and eventually you digest, in a Beckett does "Sleepless in Seattle" kind of way, the whole of Valentine's Day's romantic potential:

HIM: I hope.
HER: It's love.
HIM: For you.
HER: For keeps.
HIM: Be true.
HER: Ask me.
HIM: Only you.
HER: It's true.
HIM: Marry me.
HER: I do.
HIM: All mine.
HER: Get real.

Best to buy a packet of Rolaids, treat the heartburn and call it a night. Best to save love for a more amiable day.

Like the Ides of March.

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