The Parasite | Page 4

soaked with exact knowledge. I have trained myself to deal only with
fact and with proof. Surmise and fancy have no place in my scheme of
thought. Show me what I can see with my microscope, cut with my
scalpel, weigh in my balance, and I will devote a lifetime to its
investigation. But when you ask me to study feelings, impressions,
suggestions, you ask me to do what is distasteful and even
demoralizing. A departure from pure reason affects me like an evil
smell or a musical discord.
Which is a very sufficient reason why I am a little loath to go to
Professor Wilson's tonight. Still I feel that I could hardly get out of the
invitation without positive rudeness; and, now that Mrs. Marden and
Agatha are going, of course I would not if I could. But I had rather
meet them anywhere else. I know that Wilson would draw me into this
nebulous semi-science of his if he could. In his enthusiasm he is
perfectly impervious to hints or remonstrances. Nothing short of a
positive quarrel will make him realize my aversion to the whole
business. I have no doubt that he has some new mesmerist or
clairvoyant or medium or trickster of some sort whom he is going to

exhibit to us, for even his entertainments bear upon his hobby. Well, it
will be a treat for Agatha, at any rate. She is interested in it, as woman
usually is in whatever is vague and mystical and indefinite.
10.50 P. M. This diary-keeping of mine is, I fancy, the outcome of that
scientific habit of mind about which I wrote this morning. I like to
register impressions while they are fresh. Once a day at least I endeavor
to define my own mental position. It is a useful piece of self-analysis,
and has, I fancy, a steadying effect upon the character. Frankly, I must
confess that my own needs what stiffening I can give it. I fear that, after
all, much of my neurotic temperament survives, and that I am far from
that cool, calm precision which characterizes Murdoch or Pratt-
Haldane. Otherwise, why should the tomfoolery which I have
witnessed this evening have set my nerves thrilling so that even now I
am all unstrung? My only comfort is that neither Wilson nor Miss
Penclosa nor even Agatha could have possibly known my weakness.
And what in the world was there to excite me? Nothing, or so little that
it will seem ludicrous when I set it down.
The Mardens got to Wilson's before me. In fact, I was one of the last to
arrive and found the room crowded. I had hardly time to say a word to
Mrs. Marden and to Agatha, who was looking charming in white and
pink, with glittering wheat-ears in her hair, when Wilson came
twitching at my sleeve.
"You want something positive, Gilroy," said he, drawing me apart into
a corner. "My dear fellow, I have a phenomenon--a phenomenon!"
I should have been more impressed had I not heard the same before.
His sanguine spirit turns every fire-fly into a star.
"No possible question about the bona fides this time," said he, in
answer, perhaps, to some little gleam of amusement in my eyes. "My
wife has known her for many years. They both come from Trinidad,
you know. Miss Penclosa has only been in England a month or two,
and knows no one outside the university circle, but I assure you that the
things she has told us suffice in themselves to establish clairvoyance

upon an absolutely scientific basis. There is nothing like her, amateur
or professional. Come and be introduced!"
I like none of these mystery-mongers, but the amateur least of all. With
the paid performer you may pounce upon him and expose him the
instant that you have seen through his trick. He is there to deceive you,
and you are there to find him out. But what are you to do with the
friend of your host's wife? Are you to turn on a light suddenly and
expose her slapping a surreptitious banjo? Or are you to hurl cochineal
over her evening frock when she steals round with her phosphorus
bottle and her supernatural platitude? There would he a scene, and you
would be looked upon as a brute. So you have your choice of being that
or a dupe. I was in no very good humor as I followed Wilson to the
lady.
Any one less like my idea of a West Indian could not be imagined. She
was a small, frail creature, well over forty, I should say, with a pale,
peaky face, and hair of a very light shade of chestnut. Her presence was
insignificant and her manner retiring. In any group