Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1869-11-05
TOLD FOR TRUTH.
What a Heart May Contain.

Sound science has secuted at the idea
of the sentimental phrase, a broken
heart" having any iteroL Specification.
Yet some authorities have affirmed that
such an accident as a real rupture of one
of the ventricles of the heart in man, and
even in the lower animals, NAV occur
under the strain of very sudden or in
tense emotion, or 10 consequence of too
extreme physical effort, as in leaping,
running, climbing, or in lifting heavy
weights.
The writer who records the following
remarkable facts will not undertake
either to discuss or TO repair broken
hearts, in this place, but will leave the
appreciation of his narrative to those
who are familiar with the marvels of
science.
l have a queer sanctum and quiet
one among the rocks that overlook the
widest cliffs above Weehawken, aud it is
haunted by queer people. They all live
and move before you every day, good
reader, but their names are, probably,
not on the list of your fashionable &C
quaintances. They are men and women
of peculiar studies, quaint experiences,
varied and often sad adventures; but
they are all pleasant companions alter all,
not warped and soured by the merited or
unmerited buffetings of the world, but
only quoted and humbled by what they
have learned and seen. Their only
sarcasm is for the arrogance, assump-
ton, and the little apish Alterations
which wealth, position, or the spirit of
coterie, sometimes brings out, like rash,
upon the moral surface of weak people.
All these friends are scientific students
and thinkers; most of them polyglot in
languages and learned speciaties; many
of them distinguished as professors and
practitioners. Life is too solemn and in
iricate mystery for them TO trihe with it,
and death too close at hand, too easily in-
voked, too sudden in its coming, to be for
gotten even during their gayest hours.
Only the uniformed or the thoughtless
make light Of either life or death. or any
of those inexplicable things that are over,
under, aud around US, continually and
forever, whether our immortality be
clothed with the flesh or with the spirit
only.
A rainy evening in June of the pres
ent year, after sultry day, mists and
shadows resting over the Hudson and
the green heights beyond, while far to
the right, on the lowland stretching sea-
ward, and fading into the veil of dis
lance, lay the great city, like jagged
cloud dotted with specks Of light. The
birds were silent; the house was still ;
the cleaning sombre; and the very fire.
flies seemed languid in the occasional
flashes they threw out, like signals
among the dripping leaves that hung be
yond the edge of the high perched, COW
cred balcony, where another sat with
me, talking of strange things contid-
iugly, in undertones, as real friends may
| do.
My companion whom I shall make free
to call the " Doctor slipped his thumb
and forefnger into his waistcoat- pocket,
and drew something from it which be
showed to me. 1t was sort of a
sheath, about two inches 10 length, half
an inch in diameter, and of a steeIy-gray
color.
"Examine that" he said.
/ took the article and looked at it, sur
missing. from its appearance, that it was
of platinum.
Where did you get thatr asked.
Sin the heart Of man who is dead y
started with amazement at so singu.
lar a reply; but the doctor sat there beside
me, calm and perfectly cool, looking with
a grave face toward the dim spires on the
| horizon.
"I said the heart" he resumed, /" in
order to strike your attention, without
having to explain things at tedious length
In science, however, the expression is a
heresy. But had at once said the pleura