Love, hope, fear, despair,
disappointment, ambition, pride, supplication, craft, cant, fraud,
piety, speculation, secrets, tenderness, bitterness, duty,
disobedience, truth, falsehood, gratitude, humbug, and all sorts of
such things, pass through it or wait till called for; they "are thar."
All these are dispersed by railways, expresses, fast and slow coaches,
and carriers. By a figure of speech all these things are sumtotalized,
and if put on paper, the depository is called the post-office, and the
place where they are conceived and hatched and matured, the heart.
Well, neither the one nor the other has any feeling. They are merely
the edifices respectively designed for these operations. The thing and
its contents are in one case called the heart; but the contents only
of the other are called the mail. Literally therefore the heart is a
muscle, or some such an affair, and nothing more; but figuratively it
is a general term that includes, expresses, and stands for all these
things together. We talk of it therefore as a living, animated,
responsible being that thinks for itself, and acts through its agents.
It is either our spiritual part, or something spiritual within us.
Subordinate or independent of us--guiding or obeying us--influencing
or influenced by us. We speak of it, and others treat it, as separate,
for they and we say our heart. We give it, a colour and a character;
it may be a black heart or a base heart; it may be a brave or a
cowardly one; it may be a sound or a weak heart also, and a true or a
false one; generous or ungrateful; kind or malignant, and so on.
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