As hummingbirds zip past, think about their sounds. The sound of a mini racecar bringing the final hum into the evening sunset. Think about how quickly a hummingbird’s tiny wings have to flap, and how quickly their even tinier hearts have to beat to keep up. A hummingbird’s heart beats about ten times a second, 600 times a minute, or 36,000 times an hour. Doyle says, “Consider for a moment those hummingbirds who did not open their eyes again today… each thunderous wild heart the size on an infant’s fingernail, each mad heart silent, a brilliant music stilled.” (p. 95). He then lists sixteen different species of hummingbirds, adding to the effect of how many tiny hearts are forever stilled each night. This is just one example of how Doyle appeals to pathos while simultaneously talking about the heart’s anatomical function, within every paragraph. He forces whomever is reading to dig deeper into their hearts and find what makes their heart skip and what makes the heart stop; he explains the chambers of the heart and what is inside those chambers, but he also explains the disappointments and gratifications each heart endures through life. 

For the most part, Doyle begins each paragraph talking about the heart’s function as an active organ in the body; for example, “A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser.” (p.94). Then he moves to the different “rooms” or chambers of the heart, “Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers” (p. 96). By doing this he is opening doors of the heart. The different chambers have different functions anatomically, but could they also be responsible for housing different emotions? Maybe the ventricles are responsible for suppressing, while the atriums are responsible for expressing. Blood has to pump through every chamber of the heart before it is released into the body, just like every experience could have to pass through every chamber before an emotion is felt. It then flows through the body and eventually reaches the brain where it is acknowledged and interpreted. But once these emotions reach the brain, they don’t stop, they keep flowing until they reach to the heart to be interpreted and processed again; a never ending process that can cause conflicting emotions. 

“No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.” (Doyle, 96). Literally, he is talking about the fact that over half of the body is made of liquid; but figuratively, he is talking about what can make someone so disoriented and distraught that their body has created currents of conflicting emotions that just pull them deeper into the abyss.

Doyle then introduces the whale, and its enormous heart. Beginning with how large the actual heart is, “It weighs more than seven tons. It is as big as a room… a child could walk around it, head high, bending only to step through the valves”, then taking an abrupt turn, shows his explanation for the size of a whale’s heart (p.95). First he states all of the things humans do not understand about whales, such as; diet, language, diseases, travel patterns, spirituality. Then states the one thing humans do know, “But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles.” (Doyle, 95,96). Why do the creatures with the largest hearts always travel in pairs? Could it be because their partner is a sense of security, or do they feel as if they cannot make it along life’s journey alone? Even whales, creatures with the hearts as big as rooms, need love to feel alive. The heart plays an important role in everyday life. It not only regulates blood flow and has a proportionate size to the animal it inhabits, but it is held responsible for housing love, anger and sympathy.

Doyle lastly talks about the human heart. He doesn’t take the time to talk about the heart anatomically this time because there is a general understanding of the heart’s function inside the body. “So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one in the end – not mother and father, not wife and husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart.” (Doyle, p. 96). Doyle holds the heart accountable for everything. Everything. No wonder the heart can only handle two billion heart beats, it has too much pressure! Seeing that special someone across the room makes the heart skip a beat, and as they approach the heart begins to race; using up so many crucial heart beats in such a short amount of time, but for a good reason. “You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird and live to be two years old.” (Doyle, 95). But why live to be two hundred, if everything is happening in slow motion. The best moments in life are the ones that nobody can control, the ones that cause hearts to race. 

He closes with a sentence that punches emotional barriers in the gut. He forces the reader to think about the things every person dreads. The words “I have something to tell you”, or thinking back to “your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes”, or “your mother’s papery ancient hand” (Doyle, 96). He forces everybody that encounters these words to feel these words. With intention. With agony. With vulnerability. With love. He does not include the function of the heart in this paragraph because he wants to leave a lingering thought in the reader’s head. It is impossible to ignore emotions forever; “You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant.” (Doyle, 96).