. Are not almost all brains a little
wanting in bilateral symmetry? Do you not find in persons whom you love,
whom you esteem, and even admire, some marks of obliquity in mental
vision? Are there not some subjects in looking at which it seems to you
impossible that they should ever see straight? Are there not moods in
which it seems to you that they are disposed to see all things out
of plumb and in false relations with each other? If you answer these
questions in the affirmative, then you will be glad of a hint as to
the method of dealing with your friends who have a touch of cerebral
strabismus, or are liable to occasional paroxysms of perversity. Let
them have their head. Get them talking on subjects that interest them.
As a rule, nothing is more likely to serve this purpose than letting
them talk about themselves; if authors, about their writings; if
artists, about their pictures or statues; and generally on whatever they
have most pride in and think most of their own relations with.

Perhaps you will not at first sight agree with me in thinking that
slight mental obliquity is as common as I suppose. An analogy may have
some influence on your belief in this matter. Will you take the trouble
to ask your tailor how many persons have their two shoulders of the same
height? I think he will tell you that the majority of his customers
show a distinct difference of height on the two sides. Will you ask a
portrait-painter how many of those who sit to hint have both sides of
their faces exactly alike? I believe he will tell you that one side is
always a little better than the other. What will your hatter say about
the two sides of the head? Do you see equally well with both eyes,
and hear equally well with both ears? Few persons past middle age will
pretend that they do. Why should the two halves of a brain not show a
natural difference, leading to confusion of thought, and very possibly
to that instinct of contradiction of which I was speaking? A great
deal of time is lost in profitless conversation, and a good deal of
ill temper frequently caused, by not considering these organic and
practically insuperable conditions. In dealing with them, acquiescence
is the best of palliations and silence the sovereign specific.

I have been the reporter, as you have seen, of my own conversation and
that of the other Teacups. I have told some of the circumstances of
their personal history, and interested, as I hope, here and there a
re