Let us recognise the fact in all our treatment of others, that we have to deal with screws.  Let us not think, as some do, that by ignoring a fact you make it cease to be a fact.  I have seen a man pulling his lame horse up tight, and flicking it with his whip, and trying to drive it as if it were not lame.  Now, that won’t do.  The poor horse makes a desperate effort, and runs a step or two as if sound.  But in a little the heavy head falls upon the bit at each step, and perhaps the creature comes down bodily with a tremendous smash.  If it were only his idiotic master that was smashed, I should not mind.  So have I seen parents refusing to see or allow for the peculiarities of their children, insisting on driving the poor screw as though it were perfect in wind and limb.  So have I seen people refusing to see or allow for the peculiarities of those around them; ignoring the depressed spirits, the unhappy twist, the luckless perversity of temper, in a servant, an acquaintance, a friend, which, rightly managed, would still leave them most serviceable screws; but which, determinedly ignored, will land in uselessness and misery.  I believe there are people who (in a moral sense), if they have a crooked stick, fancy that by using it as if it were straight, it will become straight.  If you have got a rifle that sends its ball somewhat to the left side, you (if you are not a fool) allow for that in shooting.  If you have a friend of sterling value, but of crotchety temper, you (if you are not a fool) allow for that.  If you have a child who is weak, desponding, and early old, you (if you are not a hopeless idiot) remember that, and allow for it, and try to make the best of it.  But if you be an idiot, you will think it deep diplomacy, and adamantine firmness, and wisdom beyond Solomon’s, to shut your eyes to the state of facts; to tug sharply the poor screw’s mouth, to lash him violently, to drive him as though he were sound.  Probably you will come to a smash:  alas! that the smash will probably include more than you.

Not, reader, that all human beings thus idiotically ignore the fact that it is with screws they have to deal.  It is very touching to see, as we sometimes see, people trying to make the best of awful screws.  You are quite pleased if your lame horse trots four or five miles without showing very gross unsoundness, though of course this is but a poor achievement.  And even so, I have been touched to see the child quite happy at having coaxed a graceless father to come for once to church; and the wife quite happy when the blackguard bully, her husband, for once evinces a little kindness.  It was not much they did, you see:  but remember what wretched screws did it, and be thankful if they do even that little.  I have heard a mother repeat, with a pathetic pride, a connected sentence said by her idiot boy.  You remember how delighted Miss Trotwood was, in Mr. Dickens’s beautiful story, with Mr. Dick’s good sense, when he said something which in anybody else would have been rather silly.  But Mr. Dick, you see, was just out of the Asylum, and no more.  How pleased you are to find a relation, who is a terrific fool, merely behaving like anybody else!