The Parasite | Page 3

[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.

[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each date you
prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois Benedictine
College".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

Scanned with OmniPage Professional OCR software donated by Caere
Corporation.

THE PARASITE A Story
BY A. CONAN DOYLE AUTHOR OF "THE REFUGEES" "MICAH
CLARKE" ETC.
1894

THE PARASITE
I

March 24. The spring is fairly with us now. Outside my laboratory
window the great chestnut-tree is all covered with the big, glutinous,
gummy buds, some of which have already begun to break into little
green shuttlecocks. As you walk down the lanes you are conscious of
the rich, silent forces of nature working all around you. The wet earth
smells fruitful and luscious. Green shoots are peeping out everywhere.
The twigs are stiff with their sap; and the moist, heavy English air is
laden with a faintly resinous perfume. Buds in the hedges, lambs
beneath them-- everywhere the work of reproduction going forward!
I can see it without, and I can feel it within. We also have our spring
when the little arterioles dilate, the lymph flows in a brisker stream, the
glands work harder, winnowing and straining. Every year nature
readjusts the whole machine. I can feel the ferment in my blood at this
very moment, and as the cool sunshine pours through my window I
could dance about in it like a gnat. So I should, only that Charles Sadler
would rush upstairs to know what was the matter. Besides, I must
remember that I am Professor Gilroy. An old professor may afford to
be natural, but when fortune has given one of the first chairs in the
university to a man of four-and-thirty he must try and act the part
consistently.
What a fellow Wilson is! If I could only throw the same enthusiasm
into physiology that he does into psychology, I should become a
Claude Bernard at the least. His whole life and soul and energy work to
one end. He drops to sleep collating his results of the past day, and he
wakes to plan his researches for the coming one. And yet, outside the
narrow circle who follow his proceedings, he gets so little credit for it.
Physiology is a recognized science. If I add even a brick to the edifice,
every one sees and applauds it. But Wilson is trying to dig the
foundations for a science of the future. His work is underground and
does not show. Yet he goes on uncomplainingly, corresponding with a
hundred semi-maniacs in the hope of finding one reliable witness,
sifting a hundred lies on the chance of gaining one little speck of truth,
collating old books, devouring new ones, experimenting, lecturing,
trying to light up in others the fiery interest which is consuming him. I
am filled with wonder and admiration when I think of him, and yet,

when he asks me to associate myself with his researches, I am
compelled to tell him that, in their present state, they offer little
attraction to a man who is devoted to exact science. If he could show
me something positive and objective, I might then be tempted to
approach the question from its physiological side. So long as half his
subjects are tainted with charlatanerie and the other half with hysteria
we physiologists must content ourselves with the body and leave the
mind to our descendants.
No doubt I am a materialist. Agatha says that I am a rank one. I tell her
that is an excellent reason for shortening our engagement, since I am in
such urgent need of her spirituality. And yet I may claim to be a
curious example of the effect of education upon temperament, for by
nature I am, unless I deceive myself, a highly psychic man. I was a
nervous, sensitive boy, a dreamer, a somnambulist, full of impressions
and intuitions. My black hair, my dark eyes, my thin, olive face, my
tapering fingers, are all characteristic of my real temperament, and
cause experts like Wilson to claim me as their own. But my brain is