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More "Tact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never dawdles, never goes out in the evening except on errands for me, never touches sake, is never disobedient, never requires to be told the same thing twice, is always within hearing, has a good deal of tact as to what he repeats, and all with an undisguised view to his own interest. He sends most of his wages to his mother, who is a widow—"It's the custom of the country"— and seems to spend the remainder on sweetmeats, tobacco, and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... creatures, they say, are not valued at all, Except when the herd give a Bachelor's ball. Then drest in their best, In their gold broidered vest, It is known as a fact, That they act with much tact, And they lisp out 'How do?' And they coo and they woo, And they smile, for a while, Their fair guests to beguile; Condescending and bending, For fear of offending, Though inert, And they spy, They exert, With their eye, To be pert, And they sigh And to flirt, ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... time on the artistic staff of The Illustrated London News, gives his experiences of the Russo-Turkish Campaign. He concisely sums up the qualifications of a War Correspondent by saying that he should "have an iron constitution, a laconic, incisive style, and sufficient tact to establish a safe and rapid connecting link between the forefront of battle and his own head-quarters in Fleet Street or elsewhere." As Mr. IRVING MONTAGU seems to have lived up to his ideal, it is a little astonishing to find the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... her undying love for her husband. This trait we may fairly consider to be the deepest of her nature. She thinks of him continually and weeps at his absence. Still she has her problem which requires at times all her female tact, yes, even dissimulation. Reckless suitors are pressing for her hand, she has to employ all her arts to defer the hateful marriage; otherwise she is helpless. She is the counterpart of her husband, a female Ulysses, who has waited twenty years for his return. She ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... to him he would allow the workmen to proceed to his Majesty's camp. We were quite overjoyed when we heard that General Merewether was entrusted with the negotiation: we knew his ability, and had full confidence in his tact and discretion. Indeed, he deserves our sincere gratitude; for he was the captives' friend: from the moment he landed at Massowah to the day of our release, he spared himself neither trouble nor pains ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... of them, as they are peaceably inclined and kept in check by the mounted police, a corps of whose services and pluck all who have had any dealings with them cannot speak two highly. The officers are men of tact and experience, and the corps numbers about 500 strong. They move their head-quarters from fort to fort, according to the movements of the Indians and the ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... of the final sentence of the above telegram is as follows. I have already mentioned that Mr. Gerard was not popular in Berlin, owing to his very highly-strung temperament, his impetuosity and his want of tact. His recall was eagerly desired. Consequently, I had received instructions to arrange, if possible, for the replacement of Mr. Gerard, and in any case that the Ambassador should be recalled for a time to Washington, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely, was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive. Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the revival ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Government of the late Province of Canada, deemed it desirable, to extinguish the Indian title, and in order to that end, in the year 1850, entrusted the duty to the late Honorable William B. Robinson, who discharged his duties with great tact and judgment, succeeding in making two treaties, which were the forerunners of the future treaties, and shaped their course. The main features of the Robinson Treaties—viz., annuities, reserves for the Indians, ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... no return for its money and trouble. As to the ceremonious meeting in the pavilion two leagues off, which had been prepared for the next day at some expense, it was not to be thought of. Napoleon showed tact and courtesy by relieving his wife of this alarming formality, and especially of the necessity of kneeling before him. He was happily inspired in setting feeling before etiquette, and in yielding to his impatience ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... find in him, so far as I can see, a certain simplicity, I might almost say an innocence, which is remarkable. He is unlike the other public men whom I have met, but I don't know whether this innocence indicates superficiality or a tact and skill lying so deep that he is able to plan an ambush for the ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... case. He commands the republican army. Charles II., having been informed of his honesty, writes to him. Monk, who combines virtue with tact, dissimulates at first, then suddenly at the head of his troops dissolves the rebel parliament, and re-establishes the king on the throne. Monk is created Duke of Albemarle, has the honour of having saved society, becomes very rich, sheds ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... And I could see through it! With no English subject which we could discuss in common, Lady Lena's ready tact alluded to my past life. Mrs. Roylake had told her that I was educated at a German University. She had heard vaguely of students with long hair, who wore Hessian boots, and fought duels; and she appealed to my experience to tell her something more. I did my best ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... his majority when he came to Montreal, and he was murdered by his treacherous traveling companion, Duhaut, on a branch of Trinity River in Texas, before he had reached the age of five and forty—his indomitable courage, his tact and firmness in dealing with all kinds of men, from the Grand Monarch to the humblest savage, his great thoughts and his wonderful exploits, his brilliant fortune and his appalling calamities, both of which he met with an equal ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... recluse and a misanthrope. But no such being as a Chenoo could ever have been imagined out of an arctic country. The conception of the heart of hardest ice and the gradual civilization of the savage by kindness; the tact with which this is done, as only a woman could do it; the indication of the old nature, as shown by eating the liver of his conquered foe, and his final conversion, display a genius which is greatly heightened by ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of all three. One thing only had Tom resolved, and that was, that he couldn't stay in Scotland any longer: he felt an irresistible longing to get to Rugby, and then home, and soon broke it to the others, who had too much tact ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... his inscrutable face to detect some signs of a wish to discuss the matter. For two reasons, she would not take the initiative in bringing up the topic. In the first place, as he was the person most nearly concerned, her tact told her that it was for him to decide whether he would talk of his brother or not. Secondly she was silent, because she had noticed something, and knew that he had noticed it also. Frau von Greifenstein's behaviour was slowly ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... savoir faire; they are educated beyond the capacity of their breeding; and the older, lazier, civilised nations have—as the saying is—caught the barbarian stiff. It is—as you choose to look at it—a tragedy of tactlessness or a triumph of tact; and for our time, anyway, the last word upon the Church of Christ—call it Eastern or Western, ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... hazardous mission, and one which also involved tact, diplomacy, and a first-hand knowledge of the wilderness. But we are not much surprised to find Washington, at twenty-one, given the commission of major and sent ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... to broaden by retarding; to keep the purely mental back and by every method to bring the intuitions to the front; appeals to tact and taste should be incessant; a purely intellectual man is no doubt biologically a deformity, but a purely intellectual woman is far more so. Bookishness is probably a bad sign in a girl; it suggests artificiality, pedantry, the lugging of dead knowledge. Mere learning ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... many patients who only remained so short a time, there was an inevitable tendency to relapse into treating men as "cases," not as brothers. To get through their exterior needed tact and experience. But if love is a force stronger than bayonets and guns, it certainly has its place in modern—and all time—surgery. I have a shrewd suspicion that it is better worth exhibiting than quite a number of the drugs still on the world's pharmacopoeias. Many ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Bridoul possessed a very considerable amount of influence. He presented his comrade to some of the fortunate speculators, and recommended him to them to such purpose that several of them took Coursegol under their protection. Quick-witted, endowed with remarkable energy and tact, and inspired by an ardent desire to acquire wealth for the sake of Dolores, he rendered them important services on more than one occasion by lending his obscure and modest name to conceal operations in which a well-known personage could not ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... dashed along with foaming horses as if the fate of a nation depended upon his reaching his stage at a given time. He could remember Mosspaul Inn at the zenith of its fame under the reigning sovereign Mr. Gownlock—whose tact and management made his Hotel famous. He had frequently to carry large sums of money from the Border banks and although these were the days of footpads and highwaymen, and coaches were "held up" in other ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... within a form, ever presses outwards in order that the form may expand, but presses gently, lest the form should break ere yet it had reached its utmost limit of expansion. With infinite patience and tact and discretion, the divine One keeps up the constant pressure that expands, without loosing a force that would disrupt. In every form, in mineral, in vegetable, in animal, in man, this expansive energy of the Logos is ceaselessly working. That is the evolutionary force, ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... and facile faculties of brain. The young lady, who was waiting too, though not so patiently as the others, amused herself in drawing them out and foiling them against each other, with a good deal of youthful tact, and want of charity, for a while. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... you are!" he said. "You have no tact whatever in the management of women. Julia would fly back to you, if you ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... them something of his own enthusiasm. He gained the power over their hearts which a great general gains over his soldiers. His approval, his interest in a man, were the all-absorbing object, the all-sufficient reward; the one punishment feared was dismissal, always inflicted with courtesy and tact, from the honour and the joy of serving ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... them through. Those girls, by long practice in "the circle," and day by day, before astonished and wondering neighbors gathered to witness their distresses, and especially on the more public occasions of the examinations, had acquired consummate boldness and tact. In simulation of passions, sufferings, and physical affections; in sleight of hand, and in the management of voice and feature and attitude,—no necromancers have surpassed them. There has seldom ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... grandfather, with the back of his head resting on the low window sill, and the old gentleman was looking at him admiringly. He was not at all sure of the import of Diavolo's last reply, but had the tact ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... with sinking heart, left her husband, having the tact not to press upon him too strongly the claims of mercy as well as of justice. She knew that his kind nature would come to the assistance of her own suing, and deeply regretted that the time for milder influences to prevail was so short. In a brief conference with Elsa, she endeavoured ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... Gwynn, and was far from grateful for those benefits which the latter showered upon him. At this intelligence, Mr. Gywnn was taken so aback that Mrs. Hanway-Harley stopped abruptly and shifted the conversation. Mrs. Hanway-Harley was one of those who have half-tact; they know enough to back out and not enough to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the myriad eyes Of countless stars, went sailing through the skies, Like some young prince, rising to rule a nation, To whom all eyes are turned in expectation. A woman who possesses tact and art And strength of will can take the hand of doom, And walk on, smiling sweetly as she goes, With rosy lips, and rounded cheeks of bloom, Cheating a loud-tongued world that never knows The pain and sorrow of her hidden heart. And so ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... were bright with tears, but were not, as yet, wet and red with weeping. Was not this confession enough? Was he so hard-hearted as to make her tell her own disgrace in spoken words? Of course he knew, well enough, now, when the diamonds had been stolen. If he were possessed of any tenderness, any tact, any manliness, he would go on, presuming that ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... long before her marriage this feeling had merged into a truer love than she had ever felt before; and now that he was her own, her husband, her whole soul was bent toward making him amends, as far as in her lay, for the misery which, with a woman's tact, she saw that he had to endure at his home. Her greetings were abounding in delicately-expressed love; her study of his tastes unwearying, in the arrangement of her dress, her ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the master for the week, was not a bad man, but of very moderate attainments, and he lacked the tact which is indispensable for discerning the different characters of children, and graduating their punishment to their powers of resistance. Father Haugoult, then, began very obligingly to communicate to his pupils the wonderful events which were to ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... the 14th of February. In his later years, after his removal to New York, he entered into the social life of that city. He was in demand at weddings, dinners, parties, reunions of soldiers, and public meetings, where his genial nature and ready tact, his fund of information and happy facility of expression, made him a universal favorite. He was temperate in his eating and drinking, but fond of companionship, and always happy when he had his old friends and comrades about him. He ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... England, where he had been knighted by the Prince Regent, to take the post of lieutenant-governor of Sumatra, to which the British did not finally relinquish their claims until half a century later. His administration of that great island was characterized by the same breadth of vision, tact, and energy which had marked his rule in Java. It was during this period that Raffles rendered his greatest service to the empire. The Dutch, upon regaining Java, attempted to obtain complete control of all the islands of the archipelago, which would have resulted ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... the novel is that master-piece of address and cunning, little Becky Sharp. Tact and talent never had a worthier representative than this character. She indicates the extreme point of worldly success to which these qualities will carry a person, and also the impossibility of their providing against all contingencies in life. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... peril of offending the privilege of others, and of those especially who are powerful to-day, since I would be discussing things very dear and domestic to my fellow-men, such as The Honour of Politicians, The Tact of Great Ladies, The Wealth of Journalists, The Enthusiasm of Gentlemen, and the Wit of Bankers. All that is most intimate and dearest to the men that make our time, all that they would most ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... womanly tact Belle saw that the loss of her hair was a subject replete with bitter anguish, and turning to the children she took them in her lap and interested and amused them by telling beautiful fairy stories. In a short time Mary's composure returned, and she said, "Miss Belle, I can now tell you how ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... unacquainted with the kingdom against which he cherished these ulterior views; for he had been, nearly thirty years before, when he fell under the lash of Junius, one of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland. For the rest he was a man of great information, tact, and firmness; indefatigable in business; tolerant by temperament and conviction; but both as a general and a politician it was his lot to be identified in India and in Ireland with successes which might better have been failures, and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... and sturdy commonsense of Brahms were now in evidence. In business affairs he was ready, decisive and systematic. And the delicacy, tact and charming good-nature he ever showed, reveal the man as a most extraordinary figure. Great talent is often bought at a price—how well we know this, especially with musicians! But Brahms was sane on all subjects. He could take care of his own ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... a mollah—an ecclesiastical teacher and expounder of the law—to sit there daily to entertain the frequenters of the place with nicely turned points of history, law, and poetry. Being a man of wisdom and great tact, he avoided controversial questions of state; and so politics were kept in the background. He proved a welcome visitor, and was made much of by the guests. This example was generally followed, and as a result disturbances were rare in the coffee ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... change. With his deep sense of loyalty, Mr. Nelson felt bound to maintain the sort of practices and low-church ceremony which prevailed when he took over, but such was his adroitness, skill and tact in leading them that he won their complete confidence and trust, and they gave him an unreserved support as well as a free hand in many things. This unbounded support of his early work he never forgot; nor ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... was committed," she said briefly. "He was very nice about it. He promised to sing in the choir and—and to help me with the decorations. After our unpleasant experience the next day, he had the—shall we say tact ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... of himself. He offered us more, but we felt that seven was about all we could use. We were still suffocated with laughter over the Prince's wit; His Highness was still signing photographs when an equerry appeared and whispered in the Prince's ear. His Highness, with the consummate tact to be learned only at a court, turned quietly without a word and ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... the country is on very delicate ground and in need of all his tact. As the exhibition lecturer will point out, he must, before avowing his own political creed, ascertain that of his landlord—particularly so if he has only a yearly tenancy. The chances are that the landlord is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... fortune; and if worse, the more courage to support it - which I think is the kinder wish in all human affairs. Somewhile - I fear a good while - after this, you should receive our Christmas gift; we have no tact and no taste, only a welcome and (often) tonic brutality; and I dare say the present, even after my friend Baxter has acted on and reviewed my hints, may prove a White Elephant. That is why I dread presents. And therefore pray understand if any element of that hamper prove ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ballet, disguised men having hitherto served in this capacity, and in many essential ways was the father of early French opera, though its foundation had been laid by Cardinal Mazarin. He had to fight against opposition and cabals, but his energy, tact, and persistence made him the victor, and won the friendship of the leading men of his time. Such of his music as still exists is of a pleasing and melodious character, full of vivacity and lire, and at times ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... of these suggestions will save many lives and will aid very considerably in producing stronger men and women. Infinite patience, tact and self-sacrifice is necessary, but the results in every case justify ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... senses deceptive, but numerous usages in our language indicate that people who have five senses find it difficult to keep their functions distinct. I understand that we hear views, see tones, taste music. I am told that voices have colour. Tact, which I have supposed to be a matter of nice perception, turns out to be a matter of taste. Judging from the large use of the word, taste appears to be the most important of all the senses. Taste governs the great and small conventions of life. ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... established the breed; and he continued it, and sustained its high reputation during his life by in-breeding connected with proper selections for coupling. After his death, others, not possessing his tact and judgment in making selections, were less fortunate, and in some hands the breed degenerated seriously, insomuch that it was humorously remarked, "there was nothing but a little tallow left." ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... the tact, the exquisite, yet simple English of this man was my education. Every hour of his delicious humor, his wise advice, his ready sympathy sent me away in mingled exaltation and despair—despair of my own blunt ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... its size may be gathered from the fact that there were five hundred nuns at Wimborne. That strength and tact were needed to rule them is shown by one amusing ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... plus of health, all difficulties vanish before it." But will is a moral rather than a constitutional power; and in so far as it is moral, it may be cultivated and directed to noble aims and ends. And if the teacher perform this work with fine knowledge and tact, he becomes an educator; for upon the will, more than upon the intellectual faculties, success or failure depends. Whatever we are able to will, we are able to learn to do; and the best service we can render another is to rouse and ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... while fighting bravely for king and country. But for this stroke of bad luck he might have been an admiral, and there is little doubt he would have been a brave one too. Appointed to the revenue service, he soon proved that, in addition to cunning, tact, and bravery, he possessed detective qualities of no mean order. His timber toe, as the sailors called his wooden leg, was no drawback to him. Timber toes in those stirring times were as common as sea-gulls in every British sea-port; and Butler's powers of disguising himself, or making up to act ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... quite right not to be above owning yourself mistaken. Who can be above it really? not the wisest man that ever lived. And Molly, my dear little girl, why can you not learn to be more considerate? Do you know what 'tact' is, Molly? Did you ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... are," she said, addressing Mike. Her woman's tact told her the wisdom of putting no hindrance in ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... they doing back in Old Boston? Aunt Elizabeth had already condemned the fairy stories as untrue, and therefore falsehoods, so Doris never mentioned them. The child, with her many changes and gentle nature, had developed a certain tact or adaptiveness, and loved pleasantness. She was just a little afraid of Aunt Elizabeth's sharpness. It was like a biting wind. She always made comparisons in her mind, and saw things ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... shall be a male citizen." In Mrs. Booth's official report to the State convention, held in the fall of 1913 at Peoria, she said: "As we failed to introduce the form of bill approved by the Progressives' constitutional lawyers they introduced it, and it required considerable tact to allay their displeasure and induce them to support our bill." Medill McCormick, one of the leading Progressives in the Legislature, helped greatly in straightening out this tangle. He was a faithful ally of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... with her unfailing instinct, has already made the dangerous choice; she has stuck her egg on the propitious spot and, by the very act of doing so, marked out the course for the inexperienced grub to follow. The tact of ripe age here guides the ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... many aspects of the singular situation. She had thought it not unlikely that he would do something unusual. Could anything much more unusual have been provided than that a man, who had absolute splendour of rank and wealth to offer, should for strange reasons of his own use the tact of courts and the fine astuteness of diplomatists in preparing the way to offer marriage to a penniless, friendless and disgraced young "companion" in what is known as "trouble"? It was because he was himself that he understood what he was dealing with—that ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... would gladly share it with him; but I think he fancies you. He has a large estate near Montreal, and some difficulty connected with it will ere long bring him to America. Of course he will visit here, and with a little tact on your part you can, I'm sure, secure one of the best matches in England. He is fine-looking, too. I have his daguerreotype;" and opening her workbox she drew it forth and held it before Maggie, who resolutely shut her eyes lest she should see the face of one she was ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... youth. Not a little experienced in the ways of the world, and possessing a high ideal in the memories of a precious friendship, against which to compare the ways of smaller mortals, she did not find her atmosphere gladdened by the presence of Mr. Vavasor's. With tact enough to take his cue from the family, he treated her with studious politeness; but Miss Dasomma did not like Mr. Vavasor. She had to think before she could tell why, for there is a spiritual instinct also, which ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... that the French have a genius for hospitality. It must be rooted in their beautiful, national tact, that gracious impulse combining chivalry to women, friendliness to men and courtesy to all which is so characteristic of "the world's sweetheart" France. I have never seen a French restaurant where the most casual visitor was not made personally ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... relates the story of an American girl who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly handling, the glowing style ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... have entertained for Lucy, blessed the good fortune which gave him Geraldine instead. He never asked himself if he loved her; he only knew that he admired, and revered, and worshiped her as a woman of genius and tact; that what she thought, he thought; what she wished, he wished; and what she did he was bound to say was right, and make others think so too. There had been a condescension on her part when she married him, and she never let him forget it; ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... well that the Doctor had a way with boys, for there was a problem to be solved here with infinite tact—a problem of protuberant eyes and paralyzing self-consciousness, of unnatural silences and then unexpected attempts at speech that died in painful rasps and gurgles, of stubbing toes and nudging elbows, of a centipedal supply ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... of cold dismay—something akin to fear—filled me when I had estimated him. I found a man so perfectly poised, so charming, so deeply learned in the world's rituals, so full of tact, courtesy, and hospitality, so endowed with grace and ease and a kind of careless, haughty power that I almost overstepped the bounds in probing him, in turning him on the spit to find the weak point that ...
— Options • O. Henry
... entirely before the force Governor Woolston now brought against it. Although the latter had but forty whites with him, they came in ships, and provided with cannon; and not a chief dreamed of standing by the offender, in this his hour of need. Waally had the tact to comprehend his situation, and the wisdom to submit to his fortune. He sent a messenger to the governor with a palm-branch, offering to restore young Ooroony to all his father's authority, and to confine himself to his strictly inherited dominions. Such, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... Grant, smiling at the journalist's tact. "I'll order tea to be got ready while you're taking your pictures. By the way, what sort of detective ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Maltenby was engaged in this task, which she performed at all times with the unfailing tact of a great hostess, Julian broke off in his conversation with the two soldiers and looked steadfastly across the room at Catherine Abbeway, as though anxious to revise or complete his earlier impressions of her. She was of medium height, not unreasonably slim, with a deliberate but noticeably ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fortunate if he can get such a man at almost any price, since the task is a difficult and thankless one and but few men can be found who possess the necessary information coupled with the knowledge of men, the nerve, and the tact required for success in this work. The manager should keep himself free as far as possible from all active part in the introduction of the new system. While changes are going on it will require his entire energies to see that there is no falling off in the efficiency ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... a king in very truth, And had a son - a guileless youth - In probable succession; To teach him patience, teach him tact, How promptly in a fix to act, He should adopt, in point of fact, A manager's profession. To that condition he should stoop (Despite a too fond mother), With eight or ten "stars" in his troupe, All jealous of each other! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Crescent, where everybody was to be. They parted, and Dolignan determined to be at the ball where everybody was to be. He was there, and after some time he obtained an introduction to Miss Haythorn and he danced with her. Her manner was gracious. With the wonderful tact of her sex, she seemed to have commenced the acquaintance that evening. That night for the first time Dolignan was in love. I will spare the reader all a lover's arts by which he succeeded in dining where she ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... Gilberte came into the room, with her air of thoughtless gayety. She paused at the threshold, affecting embarrassment. M. de Gartlauben rose, and with much tact presently withdrew, but on repeating his visit the following evening and finding Gilberte there again, he settled himself in his usual seat in the chimney-corner. It was the commencement of a succession of delightful evenings ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of Garmoyle as lord chancellor in 1868 involved the superseding of Lord Chelmsford, an act which apparently was carried out by Disraeli with less tact than might have been expected of him. Lord Chelmsford bitterly declared that he had been sent away with less courtesy than if he had been a butler, but the testimony of Lord Malmesbury is strong that the affair was the result of an understanding arrived at when Lord Chelmsford took office. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... any thought of God as the Fountain of all our joys and goods rise in our souls? Have we learned to associate a divine hand and a Father's will with them? Do we congratulate ourselves on our own cleverness, tact, and skill, saying, 'mine hand hath done it,' or do we hug ourselves on our own good fortune, and burn incense to chance and 'circumstances'?—or, sadder still, are we generously grateful to every human friend that helps us, and unthankful ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... felt gratified, for Mrs Edmonstone's manner was so frank and cordial that he experienced none of the oppression which a sensitive person is apt to feel when receiving compliments, however well merited, if not bestowed with tact. She, supposing naturally that he had already been introduced to her younger companion, did not think it necessary again to go through ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... two sides to every question," interposed the forceful Mrs. Wrapp. "If Lane cared to be popular he would have used more tact. But I don't think his remark was an insult. It was pretty raw, I admit. But the dress was indecent and the dance was rotten. Helen told me Fanchon was half shot. So how ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... from Philip to complain somewhat bitterly of her position, begging him to tell her when there was any prospect of her being allowed to take her rightful place—a question her husband was quite unable to answer satisfactorily. Seeing that there was nothing to be got out of him, with womanly tact she changed the subject, and asked after Maria Lee (for whom she entertained a genuine affection)—when he last saw her, how she was looking, if there was any prospect of her getting married, and other questions of the same sort—the result ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... part in this difficult position with dignity and well-bred tact. She was perfectly correct in her demeanour towards the Landhofmeisterin, yet she kept her at a distance and gently rebutted the mistress's friendly advances, and refused to notice her subsequent sneers. Twice during each week the Erbprincessin drove to Stuttgart ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... cases, is enough; Silence is best, besides there is a tact (That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff, But it will serve to keep my verse compact)- Which keeps, when push'd by questions rather rough, A lady always distant from the fact: The charming creatures lie with such a grace, There 's nothing ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... for good or for evil every other person connected with her, or dependent upon her. Elizabeth was a girl of close observation and keen perception. Besides, to most people, whether or not their sympathy be universal, so far as the individual is concerned, any deep affection generally lends eyes, tact, and delicacy. ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... tact, wrote to Argyll thus: "Your behaviour toward your wife is very offensive unto many godly." He added that, if all that was said of Argyll was true, and if he did not look out, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... a whisper). Of course not, darling. (With perfect tact) And, as I was saying, Melisande, it was quite the most——Ah, here you are at last! We wondered what ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... circumstances; that is to say, he was no longer a legitimist; he was prepared for the substitution of new lords for old. We were pill vendors he knew, and no doubt horribly vulgar in soul; but then it might have been some polygamous Indian rajah, a great strain on a good man's tact, or some Jew with an inherited expression of contempt. Anyhow, we were English, and neither Dissenters nor Socialists, and he was cheerfully prepared to do what he could to make gentlemen of both of us. He might have preferred ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the fate of political parties and political leaders. Mr. Calhoun was this year elected Vice-President of the United States, with General Jackson as President, and Mr. Van Buren was transferred from the Senate to the State Department as the head of Jackson's cabinet. When by his address and tact he had turned the mind of the President against Calhoun as his successor, and fully ingratiated himself in executive favor, the quarrel began which is elsewhere detailed at sufficient length. In this controversy, purely personal at the outset, springing from ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... skill and tact, I find!" said he, rising. "Now remember, when I wish to see your mistress, you are to gain me an entrance ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... Jesus, with his exquisite tact in religious matters, had instituted no new ritual. The new sect had not yet any special ceremonies. The practices of piety were Jewish. The assemblies had, in a strict sense, nothing liturgic. They were the meetings of confraternities, at which prayers were offered up, devoted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... enough combativeness to fight his way through difficulties. He had great self-reliance, and did not mind obstacles. If he had to take part in disturbances, he was ready, and had tact and tactics. He had a peculiar power of governing men, and a peculiar way of gaining confidence and esteem. He did not show off at all, and was not at all condescending. He had a great deal of sagacity. He regarded as trifles things ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... tone and speaking quickly, "secrets not for every ear. Secrets of the heart, madam,—secrets so delicate that, to convey them truly, I need the aid of more than common tact and understanding." ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... shrinking from observation—pleaded in her favor even with the ladies who had been prejudiced against her at the outset. When Mrs. Linley presented her to the guests, the most beautiful woman among them (Mrs. MacEdwin) made room for her on the sofa, and with perfect tact and kindness set the stranger at her ease. When the gentlemen came in from the dinner-table, Sydney was composed enough to admire the brilliant scene, and to wonder again, as she had wondered already, what Mr. Linley would say ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... think that there was anything seriously amiss except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty of dinners are given with just as ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... a line with Virgil; and the company in his House of Fame is undeniably mixed. His judgments have the healthy instinct of the consummate artist. They do not show, as those of his master, Petrarch, unquestionably do, the discrimination and the tact of the ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... hotel telephone girl tact is more important than even the knowledge of wire-knitting. It was the woman's voice which he had heard at the hospital. Captain Cronin was anxious to speak to Mr. Williams, who was calling on Mr. Hepburn! With the biggest ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... great or too sudden loss. Even under the best arrangements, however, such conflicts of interest will be far from easy to resolve satisfactorily; they will remain in the words of Mr. Cole "a question, not of machinery, but of tact and temper."[22] ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... ensuing negotiation, Mr. Adams was placed at the head of the American Commissioners. They were men of unsurpassed talents and skill, in whose hands neither the welfare nor the honor of the United States could suffer. In conducting this negotiation, they exhibited an ability, a tact, an understanding of international law, and a knowledge of the best interests of their country, which attracted the favorable attention both of Europe and America. Their "Notes" with the British ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... warmed to their friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good to see you!" There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance, forbore to question his return; he was to be counted upon for tact, was Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... door and found himself confronting the rubicund countenance and imposing form of Heriot Walkingshaw. Over the shoulder of this apparition he looked into the clear eyes of Frank. They were trying to convey a caution to use whatever tact he possessed; but the artist was too dumbfounded to ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... therefore, shut up to the denominational journal and to magazines. Towards the end of the evening Mr. Snale read the births, deaths, and marriages in this journal. It would not have been thought right to read them from any other newspaper, but it was agreed, with a fineness of tact which was very remarkable, that it was quite right to read them in one which was "serious." During the whole time that the reading was going on conversation was not arrested, but was conducted in a kind of half whisper; and this was another reason why I exceedingly disliked ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... him, beaming with joy, and led him to the sitting-room, opened the door for him, and, with strange tact in a child so young, left father and mother alone together. Robert Marsden was once more in the quaint old room where he first courted his wife. He was ready to do the courting all over again, glad of the opportunity and thankful for the ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... live with my husband as his wife, we stand together before the world as far as it is in my power to manage it. I do not intentionally criticise him to anyone, nor permit anyone to criticise him. I endeavour to look ahead, protect him against his own weakness or folly, and, as far as a woman's tact and thought may do, shield him from the consequences of his own mistakes. I lie for him whenever necessary or even advisable. I have tried to be, for six years, shelter, strength, comfort, courage. And," she concluded ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the Queen of England and my Lord of Leicester!" said Otheman, with infinite tact. "No person is exempted from the tongues of evil, speakers; but virtuous and godly men do put all such foolish matter under their feet. Then there is the Countess of Hoeurs, how much evil talk does one hear ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... matter. He had gone to Marbridge to see into his young cousin's affairs at the request of the boy's widowed mother. The affairs, as might have been expected, were in muddle enough, and the boy himself was incorrigibly silly and extravagant. The whole business needed tact and patience, and in the end had not been very satisfactorily arranged; during the process Captain Polkington's name had been mentioned more than once; he figured, among other ways, of spending much and getting little in return. Somehow or other Rawson-Clew had got ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... to the king are full of tact. She begins with what seems to have been the form of address prescribed by custom, for it is used by her in her former requests (chap. v. 8; vii. 3). But she adds a variation of the formula, tinged with more personal reference to the king's feeling towards her, as well as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Her tact is immense—she plunged straight into the subject without further imputation of sympathy,—her voice, full of inflections of interest and friendliness, her constrained self-control laid aside for the time. She spoke so intelligently, showing trained ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... life. The farmer will then not have a separate and specific college for agriculture, while the rest have one for 'mental culture;' nor will college boys in those days be ashamed to look ahead to farming as a profession. There is no occupation that requires so much wit and educated tact, and so much positive knowledge as farming. When we get the schools, we shall get a style of farming that will be as keenly intellectual as our present style is wasteful ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... causes. This mental state pre- pares one to have any disease whenever there appear the circumstances which he believes produce it. If he believed as sincerely that health is catching when exposed to con- [5] tact with healthy people, he would catch their state of feeling quite as surely and with better effect than he does the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... be more trying than that of the inexperienced girl who, in the first bloom of youth, was called to rule the land in this wild transitional period. Her royal courage and gracious tact, her transparent truthfulness, her high sense of duty, and her precocious discretion served her well; but these young excellences could not have produced their full effect had she not found in her first Prime Minister a faithful friend and servant, whose loyal and chivalrous devotion ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... resolutions. I wanted to make every one in the college understand that it was the slackest place in Oxford, and having done that I wished to find the men who would make it keener. The scheme was a gigantic one for me to take up; it needed tact, and I went at it so vigorously that in a few days I had offended some men and had succeeded in making others look upon me as a freak. Dennison told me that I had a bee in my bonnet. If he had said that I was mad I should not have minded, but those horrid little expressions ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... their future fate. The soldiers were to lay down their arms, and be prisoners to the Nawab. This amicable arrangement was entirely due to M. Courtin's good offices, and he was much congratulated on the tact he had shown in preventing the Nawab from using violent measures, as he seemed inclined to do at first. As the Nawab would not allow the English to take away any of their property, except the clothes they were wearing, they were entirely dependent upon the French for everything, and were treated ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... not without tragedy, but also never without fun. The world is, of course, the comparatively passive feminine world, but few modern books (if any) have treated of that world so happily, with such complete acceptance, unbiassed and unprejudiced, yet with such selective tact and variety of gaiety. She comes to the complete understanding of Henrietta by illuminating all the facets in her character and all the threads of her destiny, and this is an unusual achievement, made all the more remarkable by a brightness and quickness of mind which ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... in the family three or four days, during which, his attentions to Mary were incessant, but managed with such fashionable tact as not to be annoying. She was exceedingly amused by his consummate vanity and self-conceit; that seemed to make up the greater part of his character. His descriptions of society and manners in the commercial ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... One day he wrote a fragment of the history of philosophy; the next he was in a workshop examining the construction of some machine: nothing was too great or too small for his audacity or his patience. To achieve the work, tact was needed as well as courage; at times he condescended to disguise his real opinions, striving to weather the storm by yielding to it. In 1765 his gigantic labours were substantially accomplished, though ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... chief rules of his conduct, and the fact that he obtained such enormous loans proves that there were rich lenders who were ready to risk fortunes upon his success. And it was in dealing with the Roman plebeian that he learned to command the Roman soldier, with the tact of a demagogue and the firmness of an autocrat. He knew that a man must give largely, even recklessly, to be beloved, and that in order to be respected he must be able to refuse coldly and without condition, and that in all ages the people are but as little children before genius, though they ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... he was pleased to call Magnetic Telegraphy, and the absurdity of his claim that his invention would soon come into general use—every one commenting unfavorably except Richard Horn:—all these shuttlecocks being tossed into mid-air for each battledore to crack, and all these, with infinite tact the better to hide his own and his companions' disappointment over the loss of his honored guest—did St. George ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... undertook them—("To-morrow, if it pleases you!" said Melrose, jovially)—passing on to the general circumstances of the estates, and the nature of the pending litigations. The questions were put with considerable tact, but were none the less shrewd. Melrose's strange character with its mixture of sagacity, folly, and violence, had never been ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... quickly down Darby's cheeks, but he remained silent. He did not know rightly what he ought to say, and, guided by the inimitable tact, the heaven-born wisdom of childhood, ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... gift of the vocal teacher is tact. He must know how to deal with his pupils, how to smooth over the rough places of temperament. He should be able to foster a spirit of comradeship among his pupils, to secure the stimulating effect of rivalry, while avoiding the evils of jealousy. ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... Craik's happy tact for seizing on the more striking points of a character or an incident, his acquaintance with our national history and biography, his love of research, and perseverance in following up a clue, were prepared to expect ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... come Mrs. Harold, whose tact and affection seemed to supply just the little touch which the young girl required to round out her life, and fit her to ultimately assume the entire control of her ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... appeal. Each native chief is "assisted" in his government by a "Resident," who is appointed by and reports to the Viceroy, and is expected to guide the policy and official acts of the native ruler with tact and delicacy. He remains in the background as much as possible, assumes no authority and exercises no prerogatives, but serves as a sort of ambassador from the Viceroy and friendly adviser to ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... On the contrary, she is very averse to speak of herself, or even to hear the heartfelt praise of others. She does not engross the conversation, but is more eager to listen than to talk. She has that delicate tact—which is one of the fine arts among women—to make others talk, suggesting topics the most rich and fruitful, and by a word drawing the conversation into a channel where it may flow with broad, free current. Thus she makes you forget the celebrated author, and think only of the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... whereas, now, they are not only saved, but secure a share of the profits of the association in proportion to the stock held. The successful working of these institutions must be exceedingly gratifying to Mr. Dangler. He is an active, energetic and impulsive member, though not without considerable tact, and generally successful in putting his measures through. As a speaker he is clear-headed, terse and forcible, and on subjects ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... manage to indite His admirable tale of Hell, Or BUONARROTI sculp his sombre "Night" Without the kodak's magic spell— No Press-photographer, a dream of tact, To snap the artist in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... education is not always to foster natural gifts, but sometimes to bring out faculties that might otherwise remain dormant; and especially so far as to make the persons educated cognisant of excellence in those faculties in others. A certain tact and refinement belong to women, in which they have little to learn from the first: men, too, who attain some portion of these qualities, are greatly the better for them, and I should imagine not less acceptable on that account to women. So, on the other side, there may be an intellectual ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... this, and went away a few minutes later. He noticed the tact and consideration with which his new friends had refrained from expressing any sign of the curiosity he fancied they naturally felt, for Mrs. Radcliffe's face had suggested that she understood the situation. The latter was, however, commencing to appear a little more difficult to him. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... in this rather a concession to the appetite of the groundlings than an evasion of the difficulties inherent in the subject-matter of the scene; too heavy as these might have been for another, we can conceive of none too hard for the magnetic tact and intuitive delicacy of Shakespeare's judgment and instinct. But it must fairly and honestly be admitted that in this scene we find as little of the charm and humour inseparable from the prince as of the courtesy and dignity to be expected ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... more than a courteous youth—to whom, of course, I was quite unknown and deaf and dumb—who graciously shifted goods and chattels from the inn's best room to hand it over to me for my occupation. With due tact and some excitability, I protested vigorously against his coming out. He insisted. Smiling upon him with grave benignity, I said that I would take a smaller room, and gave orders to that effect to my man, adding that my whole sense of right and justice towards fellow-travelers revolted ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... and must here be understood as meaning to overcome, to conquer. A kindred piece of advice is "keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use them." Indeed he tells us that this is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. "Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors, which intimacy could not be in the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... stern and stark As Brontes self, was not his dower; Not his to steer a storm-tost bark Through waves that whelm, and clouds that lower. Temper unstirred, unerring tact, Were his. He could not "wave the banner," But he could lend to steely act The softly silken ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... was himself a shareholder? He urges Nerva to do all he can for Terentius Hispo, the pro-magister of the company, and to try to secure for him the means of making all the necessary arrangements with the taxed communities—relying, we are glad to find, on the tact and kindness of the governor.[124] The second letter, to his own son-in-law, Furius Crassipes, quaestor of Bithynia, shall be quoted here in full from ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... do anything to amuse us you are safe—till we get used to you—and then you amuse no longer, and must go to the wall. Every age has its price: what Walpole said of men must be true of mankind. Anybody can buy the present age that will bid very high and pay with tact as well as bullion. There is nothing it will not pardon if it see its way to getting a new sensation out of its leniency. Perhaps no one ought to complain. A Society with an india-rubber conscience, no memory, and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... rebuked him for his folly. His mother began to think he never would learn any craft by which he could gain a livelihood, and she was really discouraged. He was not vicious nor indolent. He had energy and perseverance, intelligence and tact; and still he was not inclined to choose any of "the thrifty occupations of human industry." At thirteen years of age he was apprenticed Mr. Appleton, a merchant of Salem, where he distinguished himself only by neatly cutting his name, "Benjamin Thompson," on the frame of a shop slate. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... there. The Czar wished for the command, and his zeal might have enabled him to do something; but the entire absence of military talent from the list of his accomplishments would have greatly endangered the Allies' cause. Schwartzenberg's merit consisted in this, that he had sufficient influence and tact to "keep things straight" in the councils of a jarring confederacy, until others had gained such victories as placed the final defeat of Napoleon beyond all doubt. His first battle was Dresden, and there Napoleon gave him a drubbing of the severest character; and the loss of that battle would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... in her ways Pao-Ch'ai was so full of good tact, so considerate and accommodating, so unlike Tai-yue, who was supercilious, self-confident, and without any regard for the world below, that the natural consequence was that she soon completely won the hearts of the lower classes. Even the whole number of waiting-maids would also for the most part, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... expected that all the other teachers would display such remarkable tact as their principal, but her example went a long way. Moreover, she was very careful in the choice of those in whose care her girls were to be given, and often said: "Neither schools nor colleges make teachers: it is God first, and mothers ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... precluded all mention of this intention. Besides, Maximilian was himself greatly charmed by Ebbo's own qualities—partly perhaps as an intelligent auditor, but also by his good sense, high spirit, and, above all, by the ready and delicate tact that had both penetrated and respected the disguise. Moreover, Maximilian, though a faulty, was a devout man, and could appreciate the youth's unswerving truth, under circumstances that did, in effect, imperil him more really than his guest. In this mood, Maximilian felt disposed to be ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did not exhort, nor even advise; least of all did she allude to her sister-in-law. Hers was only the influence of truth,—of broad ideas of life and its noblest ends, presented with simplicity and a womanly tact above all art. It seemed to Greenleaf the voice of an angel that he heard, so promptly did his conscience respond. He listened with heightening color and tense nerves; the delirious languor of amatory music, and the delirium he had felt while under the spell of Marcia's beauty, passed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... ready for 'em. It was Macgregor of some place. Frog Lake? No, Loon Lake. Then the opposition thought they had him with a half-nelson. Old Dr. Macfarren jumped on to the chief with both feet. His man was no good, a flat failure in his field, no tact. Beg your pardon, Miss Fairbanks. What ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... regarding the actions of the 6th and 12th July,—the severity of the former, the intermediate exertions, the professional skill, the daring and the tact displayed in the latter, and the complete discomfiture of the enemy's well-arranged plans for the destruction of our commerce at Lisbon and the subsequent relief of their army in Egypt,—this victory was equal to, if not greater in importance than, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... your taking this task upon you," he added. "I want a man of tact to go and talk with these people and get their point of view. If you don't care to undertake it I'll send ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... questions concerning Alice's home and friends. He replied, that she was in "a wretched fix." Her aunt was a vixen, her home a rigorous prison. He sighed deeply, and seemed unhappy, until the subject was changed,—a relief which Kate had too much tact to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... about the child. Her father and mother abroad you understand, and I feel the responsibility. She seems very flighty, quite wild in her talk at moments. I wished to warn you that one of her feverish ideas is that she doesn't want a doctor. You will have to use some tact." ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... Maurice evinced tact in his choice of language. The imposing words "honor" and "contract" made an impression upon the countess, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Anna Leath—would have behaved. She would not have talked too much; she would not have been either restless or embarrassed; but her adaptability, her appropriateness, would not have been nature but "tact." The oddness of the situation would have made sleep impossible, or, if weariness had overcome her for a moment, she would have waked with a start, wondering where she was, and how she had come there, and if her hair were tidy; and nothing short of hairpins and a ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... a heroic effort, although candor compels me to state that I never would have finished if I had not been pulled and pushed by my really ardent companion, who in addition to a multitude of earthworms and a fine microscope, possessed untiring tact with one of ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... very busy morning potting out the nasturtiums. We have them in three qualities, mild, medium, and full. Nasturtiums are extremely peppery flowers, and take offence so quickly that the utmost tact is required to pot them successfully. In a general way all the red or reddish flowers should be potted as soon as they are old enough to stand it, but it is considered bad form among horticulturists ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... gentle tact could often accomplish things where other measures might have failed. Nobody ever heard how she explained the situation and persuaded Fraeulein Hochmeyer to adopt the alterations, but before the next singing lesson ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... whose lives are passed in uncongenial toil and who are eating out their hearts in their anxiety for a home and a husband of their own. Until the I.F.E.M. becomes fact, here is splendid work ready to hand for a philanthropist of infinite tact, and large, sympathetic heart. What a chance to add to the sum of human joy! What a rich reward for the expenditure of but a ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... the purity of her descent. She was accomplished—possessed of that fine perception and sensitiveness, and that ready power of self-adaptation to the peculiarities and moods of others, which we term tact—and was, moreover, gifted with a certain natural grace, and manners the most winning imaginable. In short, she was a fascinating companion; and when the melancholy circumstances of her own situation, and ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a little cap and put it on her silky black locks, smiling sweetly, and greatly impressing us by her amiability and tact. Then the old lady went down the stairs, and the French girl said with a shrug, "Sometimes she fancies me her maid, sometimes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... supplies, and who with infinite labour brought many heavy burdens over the difficult trails. Brebeuf had proved himself essentially an enthusiast for souls, a mystic, a spirit craving the crown of martyrdom, yet withal a man of great tact, and a powerful exemplar to his fellow-priests. Lalemant, while lacking Brebeuf's dominating enthusiasm, was a more practical man, with great organizing ability. After viewing the wide and dangerous field to be administered, the new superior ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... of Prince Buelow in holding together the heterogeneous elements of which the government majority in the Reichstag was composed, no less than the diplomatic tact with which he from time to time "interpreted" the imperial indiscretions to the world, was put to a rude test by the famous "interview" with the German emperor, published in the London Daily Telegraph ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... more of the tact of a man of the world than the ardor of a poet, he dismisses the object nearest his heart with the mere passing ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... often hackneyed English reader shows himself without philosophic knowledge of style in his applause. Schlosser thinks the style of Gulliver 'somewhat dull.' This shows Schlosser's presumption in speaking upon a point where he wanted, 1st, original delicacy of tact; and, 2dly, familiar knowledge of English. Gulliver's style is purposely touched slightly with that dulness of circumstantiality which besets the excellent, but 'somewhat dull' race of men—old sea captains. Yet it wears only an aerial tint of ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... considering the circumstances under which he made Sir Harry Scattercash's acquaintance, together with his design upon his hospitality—above all, considering the crew by whom Sir Harry was surrounded—it required some little tact to pave the way without raising the present inmates of the house against him. There are no people so anxious to protect others from robbery as those who are robbing them themselves. Mr. Sponge thought, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... entrainante elles embrasserent la cause Chretienne, et s'y devouerent en heroines, depuis l'annonciation du Sauveur jusqu'a sa mort; en effet, elles furent les premieres aux pieds de sa croix, les premieres a son sepulcre. Presentant avec leur tact si prompt et si fin, tout ce que cette cause leur deferait d'elevation morale et d'avantages sociaux, elles s'y attacherent avec un interet toujours croissant. Depuis les saintes femmes de l'evangile et la marchande de pourpre de Thyatire jusqu'a l'imperatrice ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... stories that I might have told, and described every one connected with the Lyceum except himself. I can fill that deficiency to a certain extent by saying that he is one of the most kind and tender-hearted of men. He filled a difficult position with great tact, and was not so universally abused as most business managers, because he was always straight with the company, and never took ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... society with his usual lightness and gaiety. His good nature was inexhaustible, and though he liked to relate his own exploits, he had a little tact in adapting himself to the tastes of his hearers. He was not long in finding out that Alice liked to hear about Philip, and Harry launched out into the career of his friend in the West, with a prodigality of invention that would have astonished ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... before—And what do you think?—He has the impudence to talk about my attentions to Lady Binks as inconsistent with the prosecution of my suit to his sister! Yes, Hal—this awkward Scotch laird, that has scarce tact enough to make love to a ewe-milker, or, at best, to some daggletailed soubrette, has the assurance to start himself ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... wonder, losing that valuable quality of tact for which they have so long enjoyed a reputation? Amongst the Ministers introduced at Paris to KING CHRISTIAN OF DENMARK, who enjoys his designation of "The tall King," was M. MAGINOL, who is an inch taller than His Majesty. He should ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... still, for that matter. He has the air of feeling that he and he alone has a right to me, and it's quite a lesson in tact keeping the peace between him and other men who feel it their Christian duty to be a little nice to ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... with his mother, and the wonder, and fear, and pity of it all. Our hurts were attended to, and the battery of questions met with the best armour of tact at command. For myself, I said that I had scorched my hand against a red-hot rock, which was strictly true; for Camille, that it were wisest to take no early advantage of the reason that God had restored to him. She was voluble, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... confession enough? Was he so hard-hearted as to make her tell her own disgrace in spoken words? Of course he knew, well enough, now, when the diamonds had been stolen. If he were possessed of any tenderness, any tact, any manliness, he would go on, presuming that question to have ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Coke, to whom tact was anathema, chose that unhappy instant to summon him to take charge of the ship. The German master and crew had not caused trouble to their conquerors after the first short struggle. They washed their hands of ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... injunction? All they could say was that the time was not yet come! Kublai ordered them for execution, and was only appeased by the intercession of Ahmad, and the introduction of a divine with more tact, who smoothed over obnoxious applications of the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... grown to be one of the calmest, most reasonable and most amiable Union men in the United States, and quite unusual in social charm. In 1860 he passed for the worst of Southern fire-eaters, but he was an eccentric by environment, not by nature; above all his Southern eccentricities, he had tact and humor; and perhaps this was a reason why Mr. Davis sent him abroad with the others, on a futile mission to St. Petersburg. He would have done better in London, in place of Mason. London society would have delighted in him; his stories would have won success; ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... The regent at last fell back on Liverpool, a capable and conciliatory minister, who adopted Perceval's colleagues, and a spell of tory administration set in which remained unbroken for no less than fifteen years. Had more tact been shown on all sides, had the whigs been less peremptory in their demands, and had the trivial household question never arisen, the course of the war, if not of European history, might, whether for good or evil, have been ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... occasion when the minister's white house-boat with four men at the oars glided out of the bay, and a considerable number of spectators generally stood on shore to watch it. That day, father, too, stood out on the steps, with a telescope. He had excused himself from going, but with good tact ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... New Englander again showed her simple tact. "No, no, my dear, it's time I went, and you and Mr. Byrd will want to be alone together your first evening," and she pulled on ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... tearful, and would have made a scene, no doubt, but for Fred's admirable tact. He addressed her, as he had done the Laird, just as if they were ordinary acquaintances meeting in the most matter-of-fact, every-day kind of manner. Wrath and sentiment alike collapsed before such commonplace salutations, and both Mr. Adiesen and his sister felt they ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... replied—"Five cents, honey," and read on, while Patrick called a meeting of his forces and made embarrassing explanations with admirable tact. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... wasn't;—so why all this fuss? Lord CRAWFORD, while sharing the Opposition's dislike of restorers, from VIOLLET-LE-DUC to the late Lord GRIMTHORPE, could not admit that in this matter the Office of Works had been guilty of anything worse than a want of tact. Lord PARMOOR insisted on going to a division, and carried his motion by 27 to 17. Despite this shattering blow the Government is said to be going on as well ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... any pictures," Peter reflected, "he would tell me," so he did not enquire. Peter had tact as to his questions. One rather needed it with Hilary. But he wondered vaguely what the babies had, at the moment, to grow up upon, even as little vagabonds. Presently ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... contemplative eyes of Reynolds's portraits, ready in a moment to gleam with humour. By reason of his unfailing good-nature, he was always at the service of a friend. Himself without ambition, he watched men, not possessed of his tact and ability, rise to positions which he had never the least desire to fill. In an age of great political bitterness and the strongest personal antagonism he continued the tranquil tenor of his way, amused and amusing, hardly ever put out except by the illness or the misfortune of a ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... believe for an instant that she meant to marry him; if he believed it, he was deceiving himself wilfully, for he already knew that she had told him it could never be. He agreed to take it only as a jest, promised that he would not feel hurt; and with the most admirable tact, Miriam, the trump (I have been playing euchre, excuse me), settled the minister, and the wedding, by her ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... his Fidus Achates, cast a slight glance in their direction; then, seeing Bertram settle himself down in an arm-chair and begin at once to address Mrs. Goodyear, he sat down likewise, suffused with an air of young embarrassment. Mrs. Ruggles, seated next to him, began with visible tact the effort to put ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... angry with Tanno than I had ever been in our lives. I comprehended why he, with all his superlative equipment of tact and intuition, had blundered; he could not but assume that circumstances were as they should have been rather than as they were; yet the blunder was, in a sense, unforgivable, and had created a social situation than which ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Her feminine tact had led her to notice a difference in Jamie's feeling towards his betrothed; but she had been unwilling to think that it amounted even to coldness. Such a change could be explained in a hundred natural ways, and might, indeed, exist ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... good-looking stout man with thick, carefully-combed hair, with an embroidered girdle round his lilac silk cassock, appeared to be a man of much tact and adaptability. He made haste to be the first to offer his hand to Arkady and Bazarov, as though understanding beforehand that they did not want his blessing, and he behaved himself in general without ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is indeed a strange art to take these blocks rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest meanings and ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... Christie's evident admiration of her helped to bespeak Miss Gertrude's good-will. But the young lady was not very vain. She really liked Christie, and took pleasure in her society; and she admired the tact and patience with which ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... strange variation of the needle, questioning whether the steady trade winds that bore them on would ever permit them to return, certain that the Sargasso Sea would prove that impenetrable marsh of which they had heard. With unfailing resourcefulness, with patience and tact, with the compelling force of a masterful character, the great commander vanquished fear and superstition, never doubting that since "he had come to go to the Indies he would keep on till he found them by the help ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... preference for the one whom we do like. In both cases the rebel against the restraints of social mice shouts the charge of "insincerity." Well, perhaps some of the impulses of sincerity are better held in check; they are too closely allied to the humoring of our cherished prejudices. If "tact consists in knowing what not to say," etiquette consists in knowing what not to do in the direction of manifesting our impulsive ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... the Honorable Milton was unqualified, Phil knew. It was, in fact, the directing force of Aunt Dolly's whole life. It had enabled her to overcome her innate dislike for the everlasting round of social trivialities and assume her place as a society leader with a brilliance and tact which had earned the commendation of even her exacting husband. What was going wrong in the Waring household? Or was it all imagination and Aunt Dolly's look of concern sum-totalled by the weather in relation to a ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Englishmen who seem to be all appetite and laughter—men who may be said to be manly, and beyond that nothing. Their manliness is so overpowering that it swallows up many other qualities which are not out of place in men, such as tact and thoughtfulness, and PERHAPS intellectuality and the power to take some interest in those gentler things ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... international code signal MN (Stop instantly!)—"Ha," said Mr. Green, "Were I such a man, I would pass by like shoddy such pitifuls as colyumists." But he was a glad man no less, for he knew the captain was bigger of heart. Besides, he counted on the exquisite tact of the doctor to see him through. Indeed, even the stern officials of the customs had marked the doctor as a man exceptional. And as the club stood patiently among the outward flux of authentic Glasgow, came the captain himself and ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... character alone will seldom extricate a man from the slough of Poverty. In our highly artificial state of society, something more powerful than character alone is required to place a man in the road to fortune — call it as you please, tact ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... clumsy things, as you said, dear: we have not your tact, nor your delicate roundabout methods. You are right, I do make blunders; I feel my deficiencies when I am with you. But if my head, such as it is, or my heart, or my hand, can ever serve you, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... Mrs Bellingham, sharply, for the maid's chattering had outrun her tact; and in her anxiety to vindicate the character of her friend Mrs Mason by blackening that of Ruth, she had forgotten that she a little implicated her mistress's son, whom his proud mother did not like to imagine as ever passing through a low and ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Mrs. Rainham. "A mere question of management. High-spirited children want tact in dealing with them, that is all. You never trouble to exercise any tact whatever." Her eyes dwelt fondly on her high-spirited son, whose red head was bent attentively over Africa while he traced a mighty mountain range along the course of the Nile. "Wilfred, ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... the sensitive, colored also. But he had the tact that does not try to repair a blunder by making a worse one; he pretended not to see ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... observed Elizabeth calmly. "Cedric has no vocation for a business man—he is only teasing you. Yes, Tina and Patty will have plenty of money," but as Malcolm did not seem to warm up to any interest, Elizabeth with much tact changed the subject, and they were soon discussing ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... light of that gentleman's conduct during the rest of the visit to Rome. Osmond spent a portion of each day with Isabel and her companions, and ended by affecting them as the easiest of men to live with. Who wouldn't have seen that he could command, as it were, both tact and gaiety?—which perhaps was exactly why Ralph had made his old-time look of superficial sociability a reproach to him. Even Isabel's invidious kinsman was obliged to admit that he was just now a delightful associate. His good humour was imperturbable, his knowledge ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... sent an ambassador to thank Hideyoshi for the favours he had hitherto bestowed upon the missionaries, and in the train of this nominally secular embassy came a number of fresh Jesuits to labour in the Japanese field. The ambassador was Valegnani, a man of profound tact. Acting upon the Taiko's unequivocal hints, Valegnani caused the missionaries to divest their work of all ostentatious features and to comport themselves with the utmost circumspection, so that official attention should ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... this 'human, too human' creature, who comes so close to our hearts, whom we love and reverence, who is also, and above all, or at least in the last result, that great artist in prose, faultless in tact, flawless in technique, that great man of letters, to whom every lover of 'prose as a fine art' looks up with an admiration which may well become despair. What is it in this style, this way of putting things, so occasional, so variegated, so like his own harlequin in his 'ghastly ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... "evenings" in the back parlor, to those two very plain sisters—judging from their photographs. Practically it hurts no one not to be too much of a prig. Poor Theodore was weak, depressed, out of work. Mr. Sloane offers him a lodging and a salary in return for—after all, merely a little tact. All he has to do is to read to the old man, lay down the book a while, with his finger in the place, and let him talk; take it up again, read another dozen pages and submit to another commentary. Then to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... was so deftly managed by Nitocris, did not at first appear entirely satisfactory to them, yet a very few minutes' conversation sufficed to convince them of the wisdom of the arrangement. Brenda, with all the delicate tact which makes every highly-trained woman a skilled diplomatist, managed, not only to completely charm Merrill as a man who is in love with another woman likes to be charmed, but also to make him understand ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... had become of Cardo, but with his full appreciation of a secret love-affair, had had too much tact to ask Valmai, and was not much surprised to find him lying at full length on the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... thoroughly well disposed to the Chinese and Malays, but very impatient of their courtesies, thoroughly well meaning, thoroughly a gentleman, but about the last person that I should have expected to see in a position which is said to require much tact if not finesse. His success leads me to think, as I have often thought before, that if we attempt to deal with Orientals by their own methods, we are apt to find them more than a match for us, and that thorough ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Knight, is already known; but the most consummate tact and profoundest wisdom are not able to guard ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... began to think it must be something graver than a mere childish trouble, and, apart from all personal motives, longed sincerely to do something, if he could, to restore Dolly to her old childish self. He forgot everything but that, and the unselfish sympathy he felt gave him a tact and gentleness with which few who knew him best would have credited him. Gradually, for at first she would say nothing, and turned away in lonely hopelessness, he got her to confess that she was very unhappy; that she had done something which she must never, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... fact, constantly shifting from one continent to another, and their encampments in any place are merely temporary. The lord of the soil must, if he desire to keep them within his borders, treat them with the greatest prudence and tact. Should the government displease them in any way, or appear to curtail their liberty, they pack up their tents and take flight into the desert. The district occupied by them one day is on the next vacated and left to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... heard him say a bitter word against any one; I never knew him to bore any one; I never heard a merchant speak other than kindly of him. He travels for a big house, but they probably do not know how much of their business in the West is due to Parmelee's push and tact. He has been a long time traveling, and I always like ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... thorough-bred gentleman, safe in the certainty of a gracious reception, and conscious of power to please. A happy word to the two or three who made way for him, and he stood bowing and smiling, and turning and bowing to each with the nice discriminating tact that rendered to all ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... for the university museum a cast of the Laocon from the senior class; yet this speech was made without preparation, and in the midst of engrossing labor. He often showed, not only the higher qualities required in a position like his, but a remarkable shrewdness and tact in dealing with lesser questions. Typical was one example, which taught me much when, in after years, I was called to similar duties at Cornell. The present tower and chime of the University of Michigan did not then exist; between the two main buildings on the university grounds there ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... and, besides, I knew that mamma was watching her too closely. 'How can I have ever been such a dull-souled idiot?' he broke out, as soon as he had got into the room. 'I like to hear you say that,' I said, 'because it does n't seem to me that you have been at all wise.' 'You are cleverness, kindness, tact, in the most perfect form!' he went on. As a veracious historian I am bound to tell you that he paid me a bushel of compliments, and thanked me in the most flattering terms for my having let him bore me so for a week. 'You have not bored me,' I said; 'you have interested me.' 'Yes,' he cried, ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... as Algernon appeared, the baronet resumed his sarcastic tone, in a rapid recapitulation of Robert's retrograde request. Algernon again took up the cause of his brother, and, with his usual tact, gained the victory, by the dexterous gayety with which he pleaded for the young noviciate in all the matters for which he was to be sent so far afield to learn. At last the conference ended by Sir Fulke agreeing to a proposition from his eldest son,—that the time for ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... difficult to secure a permanent peace with them as it was to negotiate the purchase of the lands. The sachem, or hereditary peace chief, and the elective war chief, who wielded only the influence that he could secure by his personal prowess and his tact, were equally unable to control all of their tribesmen, and were powerless with their confederated nations. If peace was made with the Shawnees, the war was continued by the Miamis; if peace was made with the latter, nevertheless perhaps one small band was dissatisfied, and continued ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... frost-rime, or under a scowling sky, or, as Parnell well expresses it, "amid the living gleams of night." They appeal, if I may so express myself, to the sentiment of the ghostly and the spectral, and demand at least a partial envelopment of the obscure. Burns, with the true tact of the genuine poet, develops the sentiment almost instinctively in an exquisite stanza in one of his less-known songs, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... victim has fallen into the net; and he goes in to assist at the toilet, to array him in the ornaments which he will carry to Hades, destroyed by his own mother's hands. It is characteristic of Euripides—part of his fine tact and subtlety—to relieve and justify what seems tedious, or constrained, or merely terrible and grotesque, by a suddenly suggested trait of homely pathos, or a glimpse of natural beauty, or a morsel of form or colour seemingly taken directly from picture or sculpture. So here, in this fantastic ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... potent of all forms For working on the world. Observe, my friend! Such as you know me, I am free to say, In these hard latter days which hamper one, Myself—by no immoderate exercise Of intellect and learning, but the tact To let external forces work for me, —Bid the street's stones be bread and they are bread; Bid Peter's creed, or rather, Hildebrand's, Exalt me o'er my fellows in the world And make my life an ease and joy and pride; It does so,—which for me's ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... with him. They were always glad to meet Father Kit face to face. The agent told how the mistake was made, expressed the regret of himself and Colonel Cook and ended by restoring the property and by distributing a few presents among the chiefs. The business was managed with such tact that the sachems expressed themselves perfectly satisfied and their affection and admiration for Father ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... life to live again I would ask nothing better than to be a hard-working minister's hard-working wife.' I stand hat in hand before that couple. When you think what they have given all these years to this little town—what qualities of heart and head. The tact of an ambassador (Mrs. Macdonald has that), the eloquence of a Wesley, a largesse of sympathy and help and encouragement, not to speak of more material things to everyone in need, and all at the rate of L250 ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... preceding. Perhaps the most lamentable thing in the play is the first act. This act takes the place of those astounding chapters in the novel in which the seduction of Katusha is described with a truth, tact, frankness, and subtlety unparalleled in any novel I have ever read. I read them over before I went to the theatre, and when I got to the theatre I found a scene before me which was not Tolstoi's scene, a foolish, sentimental conversation in which I recognised ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... half-castes, etcetera,—and whatever good qualities these men might possess in the way of hewing timber and bush-life, they were sadly deficient in the matters of morality and temperance. But Jack was a man of tact and good temper, and played his cards well. He jested with the jocular, sympathised with the homesick, doctored the ailing in a rough and ready fashion peculiarly his own, and avoided the quarrelsome. Thus ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... sacredness of the Press; you pitch in everything, as if into a bucket. Such carelessness is inexcusable." Among them was a letter from Colburn, the former husband of his wife. "I am perfectly astounded at you! Have you not the tact to see that such a thing as that should not appear?" And he drew his pen indignantly across it. That was a good lesson for the youth. In such matters, however, he did not ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... hands. She is the culprit, but she is not a thief. She is ill.' The poor fellow burst into tears, and his utterance was choked with them. There was a general murmur of 'Don't carry it any further.' The counsel for the Crown had the tact not to enter upon a dissertation as to a singular case of amorous physiology ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... be called sympathy, altruistic emotion, charity, etc. Again, illustrating variety in this group of astral colors, another shade of green shows intellectual tolerance of the views of others. Growing duller, this indicates tact, diplomacy, ability to handle human nature, and descending another degree or so blends into insincerity, shiftiness, untruth, etc. There is an ugly slate-colored green indicating low, tricky deceit—this is a very common shade in the colors of the average ...
— The Human Aura - Astral Colors and Thought Forms • Swami Panchadasi
... Schools several times, with the view of acquiring the tact and self-possession so requisite in these public contests.—Alma ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... duty by his dreadful, impossible family. She passed glibly to other subjects. He was glad she had had the ladylike tact not to look at him during the episode; he wouldn't have liked any human being to see the look he knew his face ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... such a pleasure,' and there she stopped short. But the eloquence of these five words sank deep into Cynthia's heart. She had returned just at the right time, when Molly wanted the gentle fillip of the society of a fresh and yet a familiar person. Cynthia's tact made her talkative or silent, gay or grave, as the varying humour of Molly required. She listened, too, with the semblance, if not the reality, of unwearied interest, to Molly's continual recurrence to all the time of distress and sorrow at Hamley Hall, and to the scenes which had then ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Aquilina, to please him, had herself made the purchases of early fruit and vegetables, rare delicacies, and exquisite wines. But, as Aquilina had nothing of her own, these gifts of hers, so precious by reason of the thought and tact and graciousness that prompted them, were no less a drain upon Castanier's purse; he did not like his Naqui to be without money, and Naqui could not keep money in her pocket. So the table was a heavy ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the importance of giving herself in her most proper and patronising manner, Mrs. Morton twisted her fingers into the boy's hand, and, opening the door that communicated with the bedroom, left the brother and sister alone. And then Mr. Morton, with more tact and delicacy than might have been expected from him, began to soften to Catherine the hard ship of the separation he urged. He dwelt principally on what was best for the child. Boys were so brutal in their intercourse with each other. He had even thought it better represent Philip ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... if when a man is joyful the mirror makes him look sad, and when he is put out and sad it makes him look gay and smiling from ear to ear, the mirror is plainly faulty. So the wife is faulty and devoid of tact, who frowns when her husband is in the vein for mirth and jollity, and who jokes and laughs when he is serious: the former conduct is disagreeable, the latter contemptuous.[160] And, just as geometricians say lines and surfaces do not move of themselves, but only in connection with bodies, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Those touches of archaism that are so frequent with him, the slightly unusual phrasing, or unexpected inversion of the order of words, show a mind alert in its expression, and give the sting of novelty even to the commonplaces of narrative or conversation. A nimble literary tact will work its will on the phrases of current small-talk, remoulding them nearer to the heart's desire, transforming them to its own stamp. This was what Stevenson did, and the very conversations that pass between his characters have an air of distinction that is all his own. His ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... was to liberate Barbara, who, when she heard what had happened, asked with nice tact if Matthew did not think that they could talk more comfortably in the kitchen, and Matthew replied that his brain was always more fertile in the presence of cold pasty and ale than ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... sixteen," and lack of tact and strength brought me many trials in my endeavors to "teach the young ideas how to shoot correctly." The usual tacks were placed in my chair, causing the war-dances incidental to such occasions; the customary ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... securing his services in more important negotiations, and he was sent as Commissioner and Charge d'Affaires to Denmark. His mission to the court of that country was, at that period, a highly important one. The negotiations he had to conduct there, required great tact and ability. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... been altogether Spanish in Santiago, because he lived there amongst Spaniards, and every thing was Spanish about him; so with the tact of his countrymen he had gradually been merged into the society in which he moved, and having married a very high caste Spanish lady, he at length became regularly amalgamated with the community. But here, in his mountain retreat, sole master, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... that reflects as well upon the devisor, as upon the commander, or the engineer of the army, is not generally known to the American people. The redoubt of cotton bales, has ever been attributed to the judgment, skill, quick perception, and superior tact of Major General Andrew Jackson; than whom, a braver heart, never beat in the breast of man. But this is a mistake. The suggestion of the cotton bales was made by a colored man, at the instant, when ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... kind and motherly, and sympathetic with the brother and sister who loved each other so and had to live apart—(for she had dragged part of her story out of Antoinette):—but she was so noisy, so commonplace, she was so lacking—though quite innocently—in tact and discretion that aristocratic little Antoinette was irritated and drew back. She had no one in whom she could confide and so all her troubles were pent up, and weighed heavily upon her: sometimes she thought she must give way under them: but ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... saw how things stood, and took a diplomatic course that would have done credit to an old ambassador. For once, and perhaps for the only time in my life, I used tact, and knew in what the special skill of courtiers and ...
— The Message • Honore de Balzac
... manner of a perfect gentleman, but with a look of compassion for his companion's want of tact, made the desired inquiry; which being satisfactorily answered, he again bowed and was retiring, as one of several pointers who followed the cavalcade sprang upon Jane, and soiled her walking dress ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... a bound of delight: the appointment was just what she desired. With a little tact and diplomacy, she could make Lily a mere figure-head, and herself the power behind the throne; in this manner she could pave the way for her own election to the presidency ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... Bay Company was astounded to find the French at Rupert's River. Now he knew what had allured the Indians from the bay, but he hardly relished finding foreigners in possession of his own fort. The situation required delicate tact. Governor Bayly was a bluff tradesman with an insular dislike of Frenchmen and Catholics common in England at a time when bigoted fanaticism ran riot. King Charles was on friendly terms with France. Therefore, the Jesuit's passport must be respected; so ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... this keenly, though at the same time she could appreciate his tact, forbearance, and generosity in asking no more questions about her visitor. To have shown suspicion of Maud would have been at once to drive her to extremities, while implicit confidence put her on honour and rendered ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the West, and particularly the region of which Detroit is the centre, to the European markets, returning with foreign fabrics in exchange, had long challenged the attention of capitalists, who saw in it the germ of a mighty commerce, but seemed to lack the practical knowledge and tact to put the ball in motion. Last year twenty-one vessels cleared from the different ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... full Valencia's head may have been of fine garments and London flirtations, she had too much tact and good feeling to talk that evening of a world of which even Elsley knew more than her sister. For poor Lucia had been but eighteen at the time of her escapade, and had not been presented twelve months; so that she was as "inexperienced" ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... is without tact, and learns nothing, which is one reason why, in spite of her many good qualities and accomplishments, I cannot get on with her. I breakfasted with her on Sunday morning, and she abused A—— to me—not violently, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... quite right, Ralph, quite right not to be above owning yourself mistaken. Who can be above it really? not the wisest man that ever lived. And Molly, my dear little girl, why can you not learn to be more considerate? Do you know what 'tact' is, Molly? Did ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... in Chungking is Mr. E. H. Fraser, an accomplished Chinese scholar, who fills a difficult post with rare tact and complete success. Consul Fraser estimates the population of Chungking at 200,000; the Chinese, he says, have a record of 35,000 families within the walls. Of this number from forty to fifty ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... down certain great principles as tested laws, and thus clarify many questions. Even then the solution of the problem will not be in the enunciation of the theoretic principle, but will lie in its application to practice; and that application must always depend upon instinct, tact, appreciation, as well as upon the scientific law. Even the aid that science can contribute is given slowly; meanwhile we must work with these children and lift ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... bounced out of the cabin. "You've got to know him. He's completely loyal and he'd die ten times for any one of us. But he never learned tact." ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... does not result from the expression of the form, but is conveyed in some convention of pose, of gesture, of physiognomy! It is like the contrast between a great and a graceful actor. The one interests you by his intelligent mastery of convention, by the tact and taste with which he employs in voice, carriage, facial expression, gesture, diction, the several conventions according to which ideas and emotions are habitually conveyed to your comprehension. Salvini, Coquelin, Got, pass immediately ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... then, a matter which under Seward's instructions might have brought on a serious crisis was averted by the tact of Adams and the acquiescence of Russell. Yet no pledge had been given; Russell merely stated that he had "no expectation" of further interviews with the Southern commissioners; he was still ready to hear from them in writing. This caused a division of opinion between the commissioners; Yancey argued ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... idea of a bull is even yet undefined; which is most extraordinary, considering that Miss Edgeworth has applied all her tact and illustrative power to furnish the matter for such a definition, and Coleridge all his philosophic subtlety (but in this instance, I think, with a most infelicitous result) to furnish its form. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... squires around, and perhaps set down to the caprice of Sir Miles, or to an intellect impaired by apoplectic attacks, it was not likely that he should have heard. The rich have the polish of their education, and the poor that instinctive tact, so wonderful amongst the agricultural peasantry, to prevent such unmannerly disclosures or unwelcome hints; and both by rich and poor, the Vernon St. Johns were too popular and respected for wanton allusions to subjects ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an omission in a very instructive little volume upon synonyms edited by the late Archbishop Whately, and a partial diminution of its usefulness, that in the valuation of words reference is so seldom made to their etymologies, the writer relying almost entirely on present usage and the tact and instinct of a cultivated mind for the appreciation of them aright. The accomplished author (or authoress) of this book indeed justifies this omission on the ground that a work on synonyms has to do with the present relative ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... certainly did not openly encourage it. It is so delicate a matter, I did not like to directly question General Washington. Once or twice, in conversation, I thought he was coming to the point, but he broke off without reaching it. Many of Conway's movements against Washington had a tact and address about them, for which Gates generally received the credit. Towards the close, his calumnies of Washington were disgustingly obscene—I mean Conway's. General Reed was well known to be deeply engaged in this conspiracy. But he lacked the courage of Conway, and was wholly ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... asked Billie, for Billie was not at all tactful when any one was in trouble. Her impulse was to jump in and help, whether one really wanted her help or not. But everybody that knew Billie forgave her her lack of tact and loved her for the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... like to make romances?" cried Hildegarde, with ready tact waiving the last question. "It is my delight, too. No, I am not in the least delicate, as you say, and we have only been here two years, my mother and I; yet it seems like home, and I hope we shall always live here now. And are you beginning to feel at all settled ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... one flattering phrase, allowed them to feed him on elaborately solid edibles, and to make him drink wretched wines with magnificent names; and conducted himself, in short, like a model of caution and tact. Prince N—— was in general a man of lively manners, sociable and genial by inclination, and in this case incidentally from prudential motives also; he could not fail to be a ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... surprising how easily the problem had been solved. She would take Mrs. Phillips in hand at once. At all events she should be wholesome and unobtrusive. It would be a delicate mission, but Joan felt sure of her own tact. She could see his boyish eyes turned upon ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... owned a great many excellent qualities; tact and compassion were not among them. Long years spent in a profession which brought her daily into contact with human sin and human suffering had done nothing to soften her outlook or smooth down ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... Jervase the elder, 'and I haven't spoke a word.' And with that he exhibited a tact he had not shown before, and walked smartly away, leaving the ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... peculiar by some of her townspeople, chiefly those later comers who did not understand the conditions of life that had made such a character possible; but none had ever questioned her kindness of heart. And in spite of her frank, direct way of speech she was not deficient in tact. Sally Owen had an active curiosity, but it was of the healthy sort that wastes no time on trifling matters. She was curious about Sylvia, for Sylvia was a little different from the young girls she knew. Quite naturally she was comparing the slim, dark-eyed girl at her ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... came. I have a vivid recollection of Cousin Elizabeth's overwhelming tact; she was so anxious that I should not exaggerate the meaning or importance of the suggestion which had been made, that she succeeded in filling my mind with it, to the exclusion of everything else. The Duke, having tried in vain to stop ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... Princes who strove in this way to increase their influence, the most successful were the Grand Princes of Moscow. They were not a chivalrous race, or one with which the severe moralist can sympathise, but they were largely endowed with cunning, tact, and perseverance, and were little hampered by conscientious scruples. Having early discovered that the liberal distribution of money at the Tartar court was the surest means of gaining favour, they lived parsimoniously at home and spent their ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... staff of The Illustrated London News, gives his experiences of the Russo-Turkish Campaign. He concisely sums up the qualifications of a War Correspondent by saying that he should "have an iron constitution, a laconic, incisive style, and sufficient tact to establish a safe and rapid connecting link between the forefront of battle and his own head-quarters in Fleet Street or elsewhere." As Mr. IRVING MONTAGU seems to have lived up to his ideal, it is a little astonishing to find the last chapters ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
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