XVI 

 THE HEARTS BEAT 



THE beat of the heart is one of those great and 

 elemental features of man's life which, in spite of 

 our familiarity with it and its momentary recurrence, never 

 loses its quality of mystery and isolation. The ceaseless 

 accompaniment to our lives which the heart is always 

 beating, like the inexorable stroke of an unseen 

 pendulum, fills even the stoutest and bravest at times 

 with a sense of awe. It seems now and then as though 

 an independent living thing were in our breasts, and 

 when it quickens and struggles, as it were, with its work, 

 or languishes and hesitates in its efforts we have a sense 

 of helpless domination by an existence a living thing 

 over whose vagaries we have no control. 



The heart of man is no special endowment of the 

 human race, nor even of the higher animals. As I 

 mentioned a few pages back, the oyster and other shell-fish 

 have a heart which keeps time and beats the seconds for 

 their uneventful lives, as does that of man for his more 

 varied career. Not only the molluscs, but the insects, 

 the spiders, the crabs, lobsters, and shrimps, and even 

 the worms, have each a rhythmically beating heart. In 

 all of them the significance of this heart and its beat 

 are the same it is driving the nourishing, oxygen-carry- 

 ing blood through the great vessels (arteries), which 



