PUBLIC HEALTH OF THE HEART. 357 



What then is the public health of the heart? We do not now 

 speak of that food which allows us to make blood, further than to 

 say, that the public health of the stomach lies at the foundation of 

 the rest, and that bread and wine require to be heartily conceded by 

 the community to its members, on the principle that the laborer is 

 worthy of his hire. It does our hearts good to eat the bread of toil, 

 because it comes charged with the votes of God and man. But we 

 now canvass the heart in its popular and living sense, in which there 

 are three points to be noticed, all bearing upon the question of hap- 

 piness, that river on which health with its white streamers floats. 

 A man is healthy in this sense, 1. When his heart is in his work. 

 2. When the relations of the heart are carried out for him. 3. When 

 there is an atmosphere of cordiality about him, supplying the indi- 

 vidual affections from the social, as the lungs are supplied from the 

 air, or the thought of the writer from his age. These three things 

 are one in the proposition, that the man shall exist con amove. It 

 is indeed useless to treat of this matter, excepting in so far as it 

 may show, that the highest relations belong to the human frame, 

 and come as prophecies out of its study. This however is motive 

 sufficient, and therefore we dare go on. 



I. A man's heart is the muscle of his muscles, the lion of his 

 strength. But muscles work together by balances and cooperations; 

 in a dance, for instance, there is a marvelous association and change 

 of powers to make the rhythm which answers to the music and unity 

 of the soul. If a muscle or a fibre in one leg be out of tune, it will 

 either be torn, or make a limp of the dance. And when the main 

 muscle of all stands out, and will not enter the quadrille, as in ill- 

 assorted tasks, the fire of industry expires, and legs and arms move 

 languidly enough. The joint of joints is out of joint, and the in- 

 ferior limbs are but crutches on which painful duty carries the 

 cripple about. On the contrary, in happy moments, when the man 

 and his work are at one, each muscle comes parallel with the heart, 

 true to its rank, file and moment, and the strokes of the man are 

 constant and imaginative as his heart beats. Heart and hand then 

 grasp the same thing, and are working in united pulsations. So 

 much for the first requisite of carrying out the bosom, namely, that 

 the man's heart shall be in his work. 



