long waiting to correct the crossed eye means the loss of sight in it forever.

It is a difficult thing for the doctor, or for anyone who grasps the truth, to convince the ignorant of the causes of squint in a child; it is enough to mention that every-thing that affects the eye, such as the contraction or slackening of the muscles of vision, causes squint in the eye.

And since squint is seldom found in a child at birth, the responsibility of detecting it falls upon the mother, who by nature's decree is always with him. The detection of squint depends, then, on the mother's intelligence and her power of observation — unless her envious neighbor gets ahead of her and detects it first, which shames the mother, who feels her negligence and so resorts to hiding the defect and covering her shortcoming, instead of carrying her child at once to the doctor.

Among the familiar signs of squint is the tilting of the head to one side — that is, the person carries his head inclined toward one shoulder. In this case, the first thing the mother does is scold her little one, instead of taking him to a specialist in ailments of the eye. Moreover, squint in its first stages, before the mother detects it, causes a passing dizziness which no medicines taken by way of the stomach avail to cure; the only treatment is at the hands of a specialist in ailments of the eye.

And since parents know well that a surgical operation must be performed in a case of squint, they waste precious time waiting for the little one to grow up so that, in their reckoning, he may become strong enough to 'bear' the operation. This is a great mistake, for treatment must begin the moment the defect is detected, with certain exercises that help the eye to keep moving, so that it does not lose its function. The mother must supervise these exercises and make certain that the little one performs them daily as required; they may take several months, and sometimes several years. The doctor has only to direct her to what must be done

and how it is to be done; after that she must rely on her long patience and her intelligence to carry this difficult process through. These exercises have been performed on many children, and they were

cured of their defect without resort to a surgical operation. And there is no mother in the world for whom any sacrifice, however great, is too much when her little one's eyes are in danger.

• André Gide said: 'A boy once spoke to me, when we were in (Bringal). He said: "The public is dreadful. It remembers of men's deeds only their endings. This Paris sees in me today only the man whom the court has condemned. So I shall not go down to Paris before I bring out some stage tragedy..."'

• Happiness is like eau de cologne: you cannot sprinkle it on another without keeping some of its fragrance for yourself. (Emerson)