Unseen passage: Valentine's day.

 Q.  Read the following passage carefully:

Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14 every year to honour St.Valentine. The association of St.Valaentine’s Day with love and courtship rose from coincidence of the date with the Roman festival of Lupercalia. The festival is believed to have been in honour of Faunus, the Roman God of flocks and fertility. Also known as Lupercus, he was worshipped in a temple on Palatine Hill, and the festival was celebrated on February 14. The festival survived until the 5th century A.D. The Christian church ended the feast of Lupercalia, transforming it into the feast of St. Valentine. The name St. Valentine is given to two legendary Christian martyrs whose feasts were formerly observed on February 14. One was a Roman priest martyred in 269 A.D. The second was a Bishop of Terni martyred in Rome. In 1969, the feast day was dropped from the Vatican calendar. The great popularity of greeting cards, however, began in 19th Century England and America with cheap, efficient,colour printing methods and low postage rates. By the 1880s there were hundreds of varieties of mass-printed Christmas, New Year’s and Valentine cards. But it was Esther Howland, a 19-year-old American girl, who turned it into a global event. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1828, she was the youngest of three children. She recognised the potential in mass-producing Valentine’s Day cards, when she received a fancy card from her father’s friend. She felt she could make a better one. She designed her first card and showed it to her father, who was impressed. He encouraged her to make more cards.She sent several cards to her brother, when he went on a sales trip to New York. Much to hers surprise he returned with more than $5000 in orders. Faced with the huge order, she asked her three best friends to help her. A Valentine assembly line was born at the Howland home. Esther placed her first a in the local paper, The Daily Spy on February 5, 1850. Business grew rapidly and in 1879, The New England Valentine Company was born. She rented a building and moved the business. She published 31 pages of verse in a small book called The New England Valentine Co.’s Verse Book for 1879, and this book allowed the customer to choose the verse for the card.

Questions
(i) When is the Valentine’s Day celebrated and to honour whom?  1

(ii) What are the two emotions associated with the Valentine’s Day?    2

(iii) What were the two factors that contributed to the great popularity of greeting cards?        2

(iv) What ‘potential’ did Esther Howland recognise? 1

(v) How could a customer choose a verse for the card? 1

(vi) Write the synonym of ‘attractive’ from the passage? 1

ANSWERS
(i) 14th February - St. Valentine

(ii) love/courtship

(iii) efficient colour printing methods - low postage rates

(iv) mass production of Valentine’s Day cards

(v) from the book published by Esther

(vi) fancy