Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[125] all in vain, a single expert will sometimes come along and by some very simple device-perhaps a change in the harness, or a chestnut bur inserted under the headstall — will so alter the current of the creature's dim thoughts that he will trot away bewildered, trying to conjecture what has happened. Thus it is that wise mothers do; a little bit of ingenuity, a sudden change of theme, will often clear away all clouds in a minute. This is not indulgence; it is common-sense and tact. It may not always answer, but for that very reason let us use it when we can; avert the direct collisions when possible, instead of welcoming them all the time. Even the most Spartan or Puritanic mother-like one I know, who herself put her little girl's finger to the red-hot stove, that she might learn thenceforth to avoid it — will admit that a sick child must be managed through tact and skill as well as through authority; and it is my experience that much the same is true of the healthiest and the strongest.