KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

193 

THE HUMAN HEART,— 
A CURIOUS STRUCTURE. 

A man’s heart can never be truly ‘‘ happy,” unless it 
be fully and constantly exercised in the discharge of its 
social duties.x—RicHAarD CECIL. 
OT MANY WEEKS SINCE, a 
highly-valued correspondent 
expressed certain fears lest 
her favorite JOURNAL should 
droop for the want of sub- 
jects. ‘‘How can you, my 
dear Sir,” added she, “ ever 
keep up @ succession of ex- 
citing topics, sufficient to satisfy the cravings 
of an English public?” Let us here repeat 
to this kind soul in public, what has been 
conveyed to her ear in private,—NATURE is 
our “study.” We walk in a field of inex- 
haustible beauty ; each day producing some- 
thing still more beautiful than the last. Our 
subjects exhausted !—Never! 
It has occurred to us more than once or 
twice of late, that we are a marked favorite 
of Fortune. We have accomplished, un- 
aided, what many we could name would have 
given thousands of pounds to have carried 
out. Money, however, cannot purchase what 
we hint at. ‘Non cuivis homini contingit 
adie Corinthum.’’ We have aimed high, and 
reached the very summit of our fondest 
hopes. We have the evidence within. 
It is a strange fact that we are not 
allowed to choose our own subjects month 
after month. Bent on some grand idea, and 
determined upon shining in our rhetorical 
powers of speech, we always find ourself 
forestalled by some kind correspondent, 
who suggests to us a topic on which we are 
invited to descant pro bono. That is the 
case on the present occasion. : 
We were hardly prepared, at the ‘“ elevent 
hour,” to write on such a subject as the 
“Yiuman Heart; but that, it seems, must 
be our theme. A fair correspondent says— 
“T want you, my dear Sir, to explain for 
the public benefit, by what spell you contrive 
to hold the minds of your readers captive. 
I have taken in your Periodical from its 
very commencement, and narrowly watched 
the one prevailing principle that animates all 
its pages. I commend you highly for your 
consistency, and love you for your prin- 
ciples. I did not do so at first. Your 
Opinions were so at variance with the re- 
ceived notions of the world at large; and 
your doctrines were so truly different from 


those I had been accustomed to hear, that | 
I marvelled whilst read. Week after week, 
you pursued the same strain. Month after 
month you kept on abusing the follies. of 
the day ; till reflection was forced upon me. 
I then began to follow you step by step, 
; and marked the justice of what you said. 

Vou. [V.—13. 

As you took the side of truth, and evidently 
prejudiced your own interests by so doing, 
I fell before the influence; and am now—why 
should I hesitate to say it ?—never so happy 
as when I am perusing your volumes. I 
read them over and over, and over again— 
each time with an increase of delight. The 
world we live in is, as you say, an odd 
world. You have spoiled me entirely. My 
old fancies are annihilated; my former 
pleasures are pleasures no longer. ‘The 
company I once kept is ‘flat, stale, and 
unprofitable.’ I am unsettled, and that is 
the simple truth; yet, whenever I take up 
oUR JOURNAL, I feel happy,—cheerful as a 
lark bounding from the earth, and rising on 
the wing towards Heaven’s gate. * * * 
You certainly have the key to unlock. the 
recesses of the human heart; and I do wish 
you would say a few words about this curious 
structure. Mine was injured by education, 
I fear, and habit. However, when it was 
transplanted into healthy soil, it gave evi- 
dence of new life, and I shall die your 
grateful debtor. a 2 % Py 
The above extracts form part of an inter- 
esting letter received from a lady residing at 
Brighton, whom as yet we have not seen,— 
although we are honored, in confidence, with 
her name and address. We shall see her, 
most assuredly, for she lives already in our 
heart. The contents of this letter form an 
article of themselves. In the simple confes- 
sion made by the writer, we read what is now 
(we rejoice to say) going on gradually in many 
other parts of the country. We have, by our 
perseverance and constant ‘‘ hammering,” 
broken many a heart. It shall be ours to 
heal those hearts. 
Our correspondent has herself explained 
the riddle which she wants Us to solve. It 
ts education and habit that “ kill’’ all the 
finer feelings of the heart. Honesty and sin- 
cerity are not recognised amongst us. We 
all wear a mask,—a hideous mask, the mask 
of hypocrisy. It rules every action of our 
life. Morning, noon, or night, we are never 
“what we seem.” We invite people to our 
houses,—because it is ‘“‘polite” to do so, or 
it is ‘“‘expedient ’’ todo so. We pay visits, 
and receive visits,—because it is ‘ fashion- 
able” to do so. We honor custom in all its 
vagaries. We sacrifice comfort, ease, and 
happiness, to the giant—Habit ! 
From the earliest infancy,—ere the cradle 
has ceased to give us its discharge, duplicity 
commences. Weare nurtured in it,—it grows 
up with us. We are “made” sly; “ edu- 
cated ” to keep up appearances, and preserve 
caste; and taught lessons of prudence and 
circumspection that freeze every avenue to 
the naturally warm heart. Hence the fountain 
becomes sealed, until the genial influences of 
some “happier planet ” in after life, shine on 

