March 24. The spring is fairly with us now. Outside my laboratory window the greatchestnut-tree is all covered with the big, glutinous, gummy buds, some of which havealready begun to break into little green shuttlecocks. As you walk down the lanes you areconscious of the rich, silent forces of nature working all around you. The wet earth smellsfruitful and luscious. Green shoots are peeping out everywhere. The twigs are stiff withtheir sap; and the moist, heavy English air is laden with a faintly resinous perfume. Buds inthe 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 littlearterioles dilate, the lymph flows in a brisker stream, the glands work harder, winnowingand straining. Every year nature readjusts the whole machine. I can feel the ferment in myblood at this very moment, and as the cool sunshine pours through my window I coulddance about in it like a gnat. So I should, only that Charles Sadler would rush upstairs toknow what was the matter. Besides, I must remember that I am Professor Gilroy. An oldprofessor may afford to be natural, but when fortune has given one of the first chairs in theuniversity 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 thathe does into psychology, I should become a Claude Bernard at the least. His whole life andsoul and energy work to one end. He drops to sleep collating his results of the past day, andhe wakes to plan his researches for the coming one. And yet, outside the narrow circle whofollow his proceedings, he gets so little credit for it. Physiology is a recognized science. If Iadd even a brick to the edifice, every one sees and applauds it. But Wilson is trying to digthe foundations for a science of the future. His work is underground and does not show. Yethe goes on uncomplainingly, corresponding with a hundred semi-maniacs in the hope offinding one reliable witness, sifting a hundred lies on the chance of gaining one little speckof truth, collating old books, devouring new ones, experimenting, lecturing, trying to lightup in others the fiery interest which is consuming him. I am filled with wonder andadmiration when I think of him, and yet, when he asks me to associate myself with hisresearches, I am compelled to tell him that, in their present state, they offer little attractionto a man who is devoted to exact science. If he could show me something positive andobjective, I might then be tempted to approach the question from its physiological side. Solong as half his subjects are tainted with charlatanerie and the other half with hysteria wephysiologists must content ourselves with the body and leave the mind to our descendants.