"Tactfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... how these gentlemen must feel," declared Miss Blake, tactfully, at which Stover bowed with ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... wife sit in Parliament," another man cried in alarm, when he was asked to sign a petition giving women full right of franchise. We tried to soothe his fears. We delicately and tactfully declared that his wife was safe. She would not be asked to go to Parliament by any of us—we gave him our word that she was immune from public duties of that nature, for we knew the lady and her limitations, ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... followed it seemed quite natural that the task of entertaining Noreen should fall to the senior officer's lot, while the junior tactfully paired off with her brother and took him to shoot on the rifle range or join in games of hockey with the sepoys on the parade ground, which was the only level spot in ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... of the press-boat helped Keating safely to a bunk in the cabin and received his instructions to proceed to Santiago Harbor. Then he joined Channing. "Mr. Keating is feeling bad to-night. That bombardment off Morro," he explained, tactfully, "was too exciting. We always let him sleep going across, and when we get there he's fresh as a daisy. What's this he tells me of ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... whose natures are what they were originally instituted and Caroline Darrah was unfolding her predestinated self as naturally as a flower unfolds in the warmth of the spring sunshine. The cooking for David and Andrew, the sewing for busy Phoebe, the tactfully daughterly attentions to the major and Mrs. Matilda were all avenues for the outpouring of the maturing woman within, and powerless in his enchantment, Andrew Sevier was swept along on the tide ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dealt with at the start. Until this single man has been thoroughly convinced that a great gain has come to him from the new method, no further change should be made. Then one man after another should be tactfully changed over. After passing the point at which from one.-fourth to one-third of the men in the employ of the company have been changed from the old to the new, very rapid progress can be made, because ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... connection between his iron crosses and the Rheims Cathedral?" he was tactfully asked. There was not, but modest heroes are a nuisance journalistically, and "the friend of the cathedral" required a lot of coaxing before he told that he had won both the first and second class ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... study and analysis of talking points, arguments and methods of presentation, but there is no copyright on good letters and any house can secure a high standard and be assured that distant customers are handled tactfully and skilfully if a uniform policy is worked out ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... can't tell you what it is. I'm not a coward and never shirked duty yet; but frankly I don't much like facing him for this reason. A madman's a madman, and we can't expect a madman to be any too reasonable if we oppose him, however tactfully. I should be powerless if he got off his head, or resented the advice I should have to give him, or went for me—powerless, I mean, to do anything but stop him with a bullet. But if he's got to be stopped that way, I don't want to be the one to ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... very much the same way her day continued. Long before the sun set she had quarrelled with Georgia, turned up her nose at Teddy, laughed derisively at poor Archie's dog-like devotion, and considerably perplexed and worried Mr. Gratton, who was astute enough to keep tactfully in the background, hurt her mother's feelings, and alarmed her father by a wild and for the instant perfectly heartfelt determination to go and be a "movie" actress. There was no dancing that night. Gloria, when they thought ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... greeted me very tactfully. This is another typical asset of a Prussian Service officer, especially a naval man, and is quite contrary to the usual characteristics of English officials, whose brusqueness is too ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... the other day how many people who were really suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding out—tactfully, of course—you made a point of tact—what ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... Lady Eynesford tactfully retreated a little way. A warning against hasty love dwindled to an appeal whether so much friendliness, such constant meetings, either with daughter or with father, ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the damsel told him why; for he would have been ashamed and distressed, and it would have annoyed and troubled him, if she had confessed to him the truth. So she took good care not to tell the truth, but tactfully answered him: "Sire, I dismounted to get the comb; for I was so anxious to hold it in my hand that I could not longer wait." Willing that she should have the comb, he gives it to her, first pulling out the hair so carefully that he tears none of it. Never will the eye of ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... a sportsman at the hunt. He realized that it would not be easy, and vaguely he foresaw failure, but the difficulties of the task only served to spur him on to make the attempt. He began the campaign of fascination tactfully, diplomatically, careful not to offend, avoiding anything likely to excite her resentment or arouse her fears. He lent her books, gave her tickets for concerts and picture exhibitions, tried in every way to break down the barrier of haughty reserve ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... implying neither very tactfully nor clearly that he was on the way to dwindling into an undisciplined soldier. But it did not matter in the least. For Stella Croyle was not listening. All this was totally unimportant. Men always went about and about when they had ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... sensitive uneasiness leading to a false step, and one that might involve him farther than he foresaw. While bearing the clearest and strongest witness to the facts which Nelson had asked him to establish, he hinted to him, tactfully and with deference, that, it was scarcely becoming a public servant to justify his conduct to a foreign official, he being accountable only to his own government. Nelson accepted the suggestion, and in so doing characterized aptly enough the temperament which then ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... ask after the intent of the Lord; that he had meant to perform the duty which the Lord had left undone. The realization came with a rush of shame. In the asking he had betrayed his wavering, and Moses had tactfully told him of it. A surge of color swept over ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... sudden. Even during the Christian ages the principles of the gospel do not always prevail in their fulness and beauty. At times, through the passions of men, non-Christian and pagan ideas gain ground and for a time predominate. It is only by dealing tactfully with human nature and by persistent efforts that the Church has been enabled to make ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... all right, and he'd have to remind them, tactfully, that their prime duty was to serve the Extrapolators; that they were employed here only because someday, in some co-ordinate system, somebody might be able to supply a key fact that some E ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... worried over the problem of introducing the subject tactfully, Mrs. Perkins herself opened the way. She hadn't been well enough to do any cleaning for several weeks, she said. If she could get a little stronger, she intended to do two things: to slick up the place a bit, and to go on a visit to Jane O'Grady's up near the black bridge. ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... you the chance," promised Gerard, tactfully gay. "Now hurry up your men with the car while I ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... no mending things at this stage by an apology. The Duchess, therefore, tactfully turned the affair into one of mirth, in which she was quickly joined by her guests. With a merry laugh, she took the Irish gallant's proffered arm, and together they led the dance. The King picked a lady ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... to the town together Gifford noticed that his companion was unusually silent, and he tactfully forbore to break in upon his preoccupation. ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... three were tactfully ignoring Bangs, who had walked over to the window and by the exercise of all his will-power was now getting his ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... good to the fellow still in the darkness; Gus did not know to whom he was talking, but he heard the man walk away rapidly. He waited, as though on pins, and in a moment three figures loomed before him, one voice questioning him again. The boy tactfully repeated his suggestions—then turned back with them as they started forward, ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... more steady ones can attain to, while others are so unsteady without being talented that they are a trial, and a trial only, to all concerned. Such people should, even when clever, not be encouraged in their vagaries, but brought gradually and tactfully under a ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... it was, they had been given no alternative, and Miss Norris, who had proposed to catch an after-dinner train at the junction, in the obvious hope that she might have in this way a dramatic cross-examination at the hands of some keen-eyed detective, was encouraged tactfully, but quite firmly, to travel by the earlier train with the others. Antony had felt that Cayley, in the tragedy which had suddenly befallen the house, ought to have been equally indifferent to her presence ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... further development. I am prepared to be told that the whole philosophy is horribly immoral; perhaps it is; but the play, certainly, is not. It is vastly amusing, its naughtiness is so naive, so tactfully frank, that even the American daughter might take her mother to see it, without fear of corrupting the innocence of age. "On peut tres bien vivre sans etre la plus heureuse des femmes": that is one of the morals of the piece; and, the more you think over questions ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... up at an early hour, but Mme. Walewska was asked to remain. When she was alone General Duroc—one of the emperor's favorite officers and most trusted lieutenants—entered and placed a letter from Napoleon in her lap. He tried to tell her as tactfully as possible how much harm she was doing by refusing the imperial request. She was deeply affected, and presently, when Duroc left her, she opened the letter which he had given her and read it. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... about an advance," replied Harry tactfully. "He merely wanted me to ride down the line and report to him on the spirit of the soldiers as far as I could judge. He knew that your men, General, ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rest of the company into chairs, tactfully separating CYRUS and CARVE as much as possible. He remains ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... community by taxation or subscription raised much larger sums. The Peabody Normal College at Nashville, Tennessee, was founded, and no effort was spared to develop a general interest in public education. Advice to legislatures, trustees, or communities was given when asked but so tactfully that neither resentment nor ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... Acton, "was tactfully expressed." She looked at the young man fixedly, and her next remark was characterized by the disconcerting frankness which is not unusual in the West. "Mr. Nasmyth," she said, "unless you have considerable means of your own, it would be wiser of you to put any ideas ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... the form of a letter to his chief, the head of the land department, wherein he told the bald and shining truth without even a mental reservation. And he intimated tactfully that if the department had another man whom they considered better fitted to deal with the unfortunate local conditions, he, Sleeman, would be charmed to assist him, or to go elsewhere in their service, if that seemed best to their aggregate wisdom. He worded his part of this letter very carefully, ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... clearly understanding from his manner that for some reason, not yet revealed to me, a course of dissimulation was expedient in order to mislead the surrounding demons concerning my movements, and by a subtle indication of the face conveying to the stranger an assurance that I had tactfully grasped the requirement, and would endeavour to walk well upon his heels, "and therefore it would be unseemly for a person of my insignificant attainments to engage in the doubtful flattery of comparing it with the many other residences of the ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... Montgomery at St. John's. Preston sends frantic appeal to Carleton for help. He has reduced his garrison to half rations, to quarter rations, to very nearly no rations at all! Carleton sends back secret express. He can send no help. He has no more men. Montgomery tactfully lets the message pass in. After siege of forty-five days, Preston surrenders with all the honors of war, his six hundred and eighty-eight men marching {301} out, arms reversed, and going aboard Montgomery's ships to proceed as prisoners ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Desborough—partly for euphony, partly because the initials made to his mind a pleasing combination, partly also in pursuance of his theory of life, that he best succeeds who makes others work for him. By annexing the Desborough patronymic—which, however, he tactfully spelled Desboro', to avoid conflict with the family prejudices—he added, at the cost of a trifling fee to the Consistory Court of Canterbury, a flavour of old gentility to the artistic promise of Lorenzo, the solid commercial assurance ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... old, who, on being asked how she liked the book she had just read, "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," said to the librarian, "It's not the kind of book you would enjoy yourself, is it?", and on being answered in the affirmative, tactfully stated her own point of view: "Well, you see it is just this way, children have their little troubles and grown people have their great troubles. I guess it's the great troubles that interest me." We have been quick to recognize the claim ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... drawn tactfully aside. M. Rambert still held his son by the shoulders and stepped back a pace, the ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... wisely determined at a very early date to make use of the Requisition. This power of seizing at a certain price from their owners all articles required by the troops has to be used very carefully and tactfully, as otherwise the people hide or bury their goods. A civilian, commanding the confidence of the people, was appointed by the local authorities to fix the prices in co-operation with a military officer, who represented ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... she, Mary Fortune, was somehow involved in them all. Yet she let him talk on, for his presence was like wine to her, and his dreams as he told them seemed true. There was the trip to Europe—he alluded to it very tactfully—but he did not speak as if it ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... bell, not a moment too early; nevertheless he found the Western men standing self-conscious and ill at ease, waiting for the announcement of dinner. Arthur greeted him warmly, and Eva sparkled, smiled and chatted, moving among her guests and tactfully putting each at his best, while they waited for the last arrival—a Miss Blair, who was to be, so Philip learned, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... war as the common Americans possessed were derived from the limited, picturesque, adventurous war of the past. They saw war as they saw history, through an iridescent mist, deodorised, scented indeed, with all its essential cruelties tactfully hidden away. They were inclined to regret it as something ennobling, to sigh that it could no longer come into their own private experience. They read with interest, if not with avidity, of their new guns, of their ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... military point of view, one doubted whether the introduction into the Flanders war zone of Portuguese troops, who would require certain material which we could then ill spare before they took the field, would not be premature at this early juncture. When tactfully interrogating concerning the martial spirit, the training efficiency, and so forth, of the rank and file, one was touched rather than exhilarated by the head of the mission's expression of faith "ils savent mourir." The officers composing the mission were, however, enthusiasts for their ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... sorry that I lost my temper and was rude," she said. Fanny had fled indoors and left them tactfully alone. "I don't know what you must think of me." Her eyes fell away from his, he saw the slow red creeping into ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... that Schubert's songs had been first brought under his notice. Franz's heart leapt within him at the prospect of being able to give his whole time to his beloved music; he could not refuse a request so modestly and tactfully conveyed, and obviously so kindly meant, and the tears started to the eyes of both as the young men grasped each other by the hand. It was not difficult for Schubert to obtain his father's consent to the arrangement, for there was more than ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... Countess Martin, they were tall and dark and dignified, and Lady Harman was one of those rare women who could have carried the magnificent name of Therese. And there in the setting of Paris and Florence was a whole microcosm of love, real but illicit, carried out as it were secretly and tactfully, beneath the great shadow of the cliff. But he found it difficult to imagine Lady Harman in that. Or Sir Isaac ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... she tactfully. "But why not take a rest first? Then there's old Burroughs—on the war path. Wouldn't it be wise to wait ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... be worth recording had been said or done since luncheon. I went for a solitary walk in the afternoon, as much to carry out the part of one with some business in the isle as for any other reason. It is true I actually did do some business in the way of accosting a few inhabitants and trying tactfully to convey a suspicious impression. None of them, however, had seemed in the least likely to belong to the gang I was after, and the sheep and wax match conundrums had left them cold. I was the less concerned at this since I had realised that the day was Saturday. ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... what they had talked of could happen—if Milly, that is, could have her thoughts taken off herself—it wouldn't do any harm and might conceivably do much good. If it couldn't happen—if, anxiously, though tactfully working, they themselves, conjoined, could do nothing to contribute to it—they would be in no worse a box than before. Only in this latter case the girl would have had her free range for the summer, for the autumn; she would have done her best in the sense enjoined on her, and, coming back at the ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... to question the veracity of the register—was Harold Farrington. He drifted into the exclusive and calm current of life in the Lotus so tactfully and silently that not a ripple alarmed his fellow-seekers after rest. He ate in the Lotus and of its patronym, and was lulled into blissful peace with the other fortunate mariners. In one day he acquired his table and his waiter and the fear lest the panting chasers after repose that kept ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... as he helped to brush the sawdust and litter from her dress and tactfully drew her away, and Jocko quieted down and implored her to return; but she was accustomed to gentler wooing, and refused to put her dainty gown again ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... as the other nations,' says the citizen, resignedly, and without bitterness, 'but for the sake of the general good of the country, we are discouraged from making it over-conspicuous; and not only discouraged, but tactfully and skillfully prevented from doing it, if we show too much persistence. Consequently we have no renowned men; in centuries we have seldom produced one—that is, seldom allowed one to produce himself. We can say to-day what no other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... degree, and spoke his command briefly. "Well, Smithson, apologize to her. It can't be helped." Then his face lighted with a sardonic amusement. "And, Smithson," he went on with a sort of elephantine playfulness, "I shall take it as a personal favor if you will tactfully advise the lady that the goods at Altman and Stern's are really even finer ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... was puzzled. But realizing that the loss of her mother might have been so recent as to be still a painful subject, he tactfully spoke of other things, cloaking his disappointment at not being able to work out his problem to final solution. He feared lest he might somehow have blundered upon some sad family secret. Even with twenty years between them, he couldn't believe that his ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... know. And one beastly cold night, when I marched into the hotel after a confounded long tramp, who should I see but a man I knew saying good-night to an uncommonly pretty girl at the bottom of the stairs. I kept tactfully out of the way till the good-nights were over, as I thought at first he must have committed matrimony while I'd been abroad and that they were on their honeymoon. I never got the chance to ask him, as he bolted past me down one of the corridors before I had time to speak. So I took a squint ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... these things you are intimate, and yet you pass through the place as a ghost, your bubble enchantment encloses you, your Secret Friends have no knowledge of you, their story runs without you. Your unnecessary identity is tactfully ignored, and you know the heaven of being dispassionate and detached among ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... She had three daughters, all of great strength, and she was upbraiding them loudly in the German of Alsace and making them scour and scrub. On the wall above her head was a great placard which I read very tactfully, and in a distant manner, until she had restored the discipline of her family. This great placard was framed in the three colours which once brought a little hope to the oppressed, and at the head of it in broad black letters were the three words, 'Freedom, Brotherhood, and an Equal ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... Liberians rose to the emergency. They requested that any British soldiers at the barracks be withdrawn in order that they might be free to deal with the insurrectionary movement said to be there on the part of Liberian soldiers; and thus tactfully they brought about the withdrawal of ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... College usually treated me with kindness, not untinged by an amused tolerance. "Mukunda is a bit over-drunk with religion." Thus summing me up, they tactfully spared me the embarrassment of answering classroom questions; they trusted the final written tests to eliminate me from the list of A.B. candidates. The judgment passed by my fellow students was expressed in their nickname for ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... other, and cringingly produces a paper-knife—whereupon the transaction is complete, and the parties, becoming aware that a Grand Triumphal Procession is waiting to come in, and that they are likely to be in the way, tactfully suggest to one another the propriety of retiring. After the Procession, Valentina, "the lovely daughter of the proud Visconti" embarks on a barge with her maidens to ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... fallen ill sent for a Christian physician, who at once diagnosed the philosopher's disorder as trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name. "You need and immediate change of diet," he said; "you must eat six ounces ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Tactfully the Republicans explained to women that even Negro suffrage could not be definitely spelled out in the Fourteenth Amendment, if it were to be accepted by the people; and added that Negro suffrage was all the strain that the Republican party could bear at this time; but neither Susan nor Mrs. Stanton ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... almost reached the bed, and had just begun to wonder how on earth, now that he was there, he could open the proceedings tactfully and without alarming the boy, when he was saved the trouble of pondering further on this problem. A light flashed out of the darkness with the suddenness of a bursting bomb, and a voice from the same ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... invitation, but of course he refused it. He tried to explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn't do that sort of thing—that the editor of Liberty did not ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... himself to death and acknowledge no fatigue. It was easy to conceal fatigue or anything else from Mark in his preoccupied state of mind. He showed no interest when Lord Lofton wrote him a most warmly and tactfully expressed letter of welcome, in which he told the coming chaplain that he must not suppose there was not work in plenty to be done for souls in ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... to-day that you are thinking of leaving Little River," she suggested, tactfully changing what ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... to our ring the portal opened mysteriously at touch of the unseen concierge, and we entered. A conference with Monsieur le Directeur, kindly, voluble, tactfully complimentary regarding our halting French, followed. The interview over, we crossed the courtyard our hearts beating quickly. At the top of a little flight of worn stone steps was the door of the school hospital, and under the ivy-twined trellis stood a sweet-faced ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... champagne so hard that he doubted if he could tell the keys from the pedals, and he added that if they'd excuse him he would go to sleep, which he immediately did with his head on the shoulder of the lady recitationist, who tactfully tried not to notice ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... attract the frivolous, light-headed, or "tough" girls; in the second place, if such girls come, the atmosphere in which they work either makes them conform to the standards of the office or leave and go somewhere else. If a girl in his office dresses in a way that he considers inappropriate, a man may tactfully suggest that something simpler would be more dignified and more in keeping with business ideals and traditions. But, oh, he must be careful! On no subject is one so sensitive as on his personal appearance, and women, perhaps, ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... installed himself as body servant, silently, tactfully, but infallibly. Manvers caught him one morning putting boots by his door. "Hulloa, Gil Perez," he called out, "what are you doing ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... should investigate the state of the Mission there. Like a mediaeval bishop, Marsden called in the assistance of a preaching order to infuse new life into his failing "seculars." The boldness of the plan was justified by the result. Mr. Leigh tactfully mediated between the separated brethren; by prayer and exhortation he rekindled their flagging zeal; and, Methodist-like, he drew up a "plan" for their future operations. Soon after his departure King and Kendall went on a missionary ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... violin, the latter is and must be the leader. Practically every composer of chamber music recognizes the fact in his compositions. He, the first violin, should not command three slaves, though; but guide three associates, and do it tactfully with regard to their individuality ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... reason that, in the main, we have ourselves brought it to pass. The children, during their first days at school, are loyally ready to force the views of their fathers and their mothers, and their uncles and aunts, upon their teachers; and their teachers are tactfully ready to effect a compromise with them. But, before very long, our reiterated, "Your teacher knows; do as she says," has its effect. The teacher becomes the child's touchstone in relation to a considerable number of the "array of subjects" taught in a present-day school. School-teachers ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... suit Tsin to continue the struggle with Ts'u just then. Then there was a squabble as to precedence at the same Peace Conference; that is, whether Tsin or Ts'u had the first right to smear lips with the blood of sacrifice: here again Shuh Hiang tactfully gave way, and by his conciliatory conduct succeeded in inducing the federal princes to sign a sort of disarmament agreement. This is one of the numerous instances in which Confucius as an annalist tries to menager the true facts in the interests ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... minister of the gospel, being one of the two or three paid leaders in a local community, enjoying a measure of the confidence of the people, and having a large part of his time available for pastoral duties, has the opportunity and the obligation to tactfully bring to the community the assistance of these other agencies now provided by the State. When he has done this he can rest assured that he has accomplished something that will become the foundation for a far higher, ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... o'clock struck and still the telegram had not arrived, Aline asked herself if she oughtn't to go and call on old Mrs. MacDonald, who had deigned to take no notice of her tactfully expressed letter. Just then, however, Somerled's chauffeur was seen hovering in the flowery distance. He had brought two stage papers which his master had sent him out to buy. Aline was not pleased that Somerled had thought ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the plot thickens! Dad, you must come to Tony's hearing this afternoon, and put it tactfully to our friend the lieutenant that we don't like to have our donkey-man snatched away without our permission.' She turned back to the jailoress. 'And now, where is the man? We should like ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... the Gran Hotel Kast there could be no shadow of a doubt. From the moment of their arrival at noon of the day after the British Minister's warning, the refugees found themselves comfortable and content, Miss Brewster having quietly and tactfully taken over the management of internal affairs and reigning, at Sherwen's request, as generalissima. No disturbance had marked the transfer to their new abode. In fact, so wholly lacking was any evidence of hostility to the foreigners on the part of the crowds on the streets ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... last vaguely realised his attitude towards her. She told herself that she respected it, that it was just what she wished, was in fact the result of her own tactfully expressed wishes. She seemed to remember things she had said which would have led him to behave just as he had done. And then she turned heaven and earth to regain her personal ascendency over him. She never would have regained it if an accident had not befallen her. She fell in love ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Tactfully, Freddy dropped the subject of papas, wooed Florette, and tried to atone for his shortcomings. He redoubled his compliments, trotted out all the love words he knew, coaxed Florette with everything she liked ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... "Uncle," interposed Mildred tactfully, "you must not be so persistent. Signor Diotti prizes his violin highly and will not allow any one to play upon it but himself," and the look of relief on Diotti's ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... stylish pleasures with the largest limousine from Newport or Brookline. Father and Mother went wheezing about the country with him. Father had always felt that he had the makings of a motorist, because of the distinct pleasure he had felt in motor-bus rides on New York Sundays, and he tactfully encouraged the son-in-law in the touring mania. So it was really Father's fault that they ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... sought an interview with Father Abella, and tactfully ignoring the question of his marriage, had persuaded that astute and influential priest to make the proposition regarding his cargo that Concha had suggested. The priest, backed by his three coadjutors, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Louis, sitting side by side on the Chesterfield, began to turn over documents and peer into columns, and carry the finger horizontally across sheets of paper in search of figures, Rachel tactfully withdrew, not from the room, but from the conversation, it being her proper role to pretend that she did not and could not understand the complicated details which they were discussing. She expected some rather dazzling revelation of men's ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... to wait until you're axed," Susan said demurely. But her heart sang. She had to listen to a little dissertation upon the joys of courtship, when she and Mary Lou were undressing, a little later, tactfully concealing her sense of the contrast between their ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... sweetly, noisily, softly, smilingly, tearfully, pathetically and patronizingly; but they had all kicked; with the result that woman had now become to George not so much a flaming inspiration or a tender goddess as something to be dodged—tactfully, if possible; but, if not possible, by open flight. For years he had dreaded to be left alone with a woman, and had developed a habit of gliding swiftly away when he saw ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... if necessary, yet neglecting no chance of re-entering into friendly relations with the natives, Mackenzie set to work to repair the wretched canoe, which was constantly having holes knocked through her. He dealt tactfully with the almost open mutiny of his French Canadians and Indians. At last everyone settled down to the making of a new canoe, on an island in the river where there were plenty of spruce firs to provide the necessary bark. Even here they were plagued with thunderstorms. Nevertheless, the men set ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... Edward decided to fill it. He bought a shining new pail, screwed three hooks on the edge from which he hung three clean shimmering glasses, and one Saturday afternoon when a car stopped the boy leaped on, tactfully asked the conductor if he did not want a drink, and then proceeded to sell his water, cooled with ice, at a cent a glass to the passengers. A little experience showed that he exhausted a pail with every two cars, and each pail netted him thirty ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... that without much sacrifice of time. Do not expect details here; your fashionable stationer is the best reliance in such a case, unless you chance to know Mr. Millard, or can find the law laid down in Mrs. Sherwood's tactfully vague chapters, which, like the utterances of the Delphic oracle, are sure to hit the mark one way or ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... has enemies of old and he makes new ones. His intense and superb energy has saved him in two notable crises. His dismissal of Sir William Robertson[70] has been accepted in the interest of greater unity of military control, but it was a dangerous rapids that he shot, for he didn't do it tactfully. Yet there's a certain danger to the present powers in the feeling that some of them are wearing out. Parliament itself—an old one now—is thought to have gone stale. Bonar Law is over-worked and tired; Balfour is often said to be too philosophical and languid; but, when this feeling ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... President-elect failed to draw out the adroit New Yorker, he had tactfully given notice of his intention not to be controlled by him. A political boss, outside his own State, usually bears the reputation that home opponents give him, and, although Weed was never so bad as painted by his adversaries, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Milt was tactfully beginning to refuse when Gene Gilson at last exploded, turned purple, covered his dripping, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... very good, simple young girl who had been born with the light of genius always assumed that her friends would be as delighted at any good fortune of hers as at their own. She fairly fed upon her admiration of Alice Mendon that evening when she had stepped so nobly and tactfully into the rather frightful social breach and saved, if ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... felt it necessary to explain her continued absence to her husband. Mrs. Leicester, who did not appear to regard her actions as unexpected, had undertaken that delicate business. Evidently, she had handled it tactfully, for Mrs. Edwards soon received a hurried note. He felt that she was performing her most obvious duty; he could not but be pleased that the breach caused by him had been thus tardily healed. As long as her uncle continued in his present extremity, she must remain. ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... was given to understand that I was almost too young for the world. Harvard was the goal of my dreams, but my white friends hesitated and my colored friends were silent. Harvard was a mighty conjure-word in that hill town, and even the mill owners' sons had aimed lower. Finally it was tactfully explained that the place for me was in the South among my people. A scholarship had been already arranged at Fisk, and my summer earnings would pay the fare. My relatives grumbled, but after a twinge I felt a strange delight! I forgot, or did not thoroughly realize, the curious irony by which ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... until the Governor-elect had conferred with the Democratic bosses in an effort to persuade them that the course they had adopted was wrong, it would be best not to make an immediate issue by the Governor-elect's announcement. We thought that by tactfully handling Smith and Davis we would be able by this method of conciliation to convince their friends, at least those in the party organization, that we were not ruthlessly bent upon leading a revolt, but that we were attempting peacefully ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... Sophie had tried a dangerous experiment. In Lady Danesborough, the Maisie Shepherd of his urchindom, whose name he had never known, she had assured him a sympathetic and influential partner. Also, although he had tactfully not taken up that lady's remark, he felt proud of his Princess's glorious certainty that he would have no false and contemptible shame in the encounter. She had known that it would be a joy to him; and it was. The truest of the man was stirred. They talked and laughed about the far-off ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... drinking. The others saluted him very respectfully, but I noticed then and since that his manner is very arbitrary, and that a blow not infrequently follows a word. He had sent a message to his people by Ito that they were not to answer any questions till he returned, but Ito very tactfully neither gave it nor told me of it, and he was displeased with the young men for having talked to me so much. His mother had evidently "peached." I like him less than any of his tribe. He has some fine qualities, truthfulness among others, but he has been contaminated by the four or five foreigners ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... time, several weeks yet. Won't you,' he suggested tactfully, 'see after Hazel's clothes for her? She is too poor to buy them herself. Won't you lay out a sum of ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... murmured Harley, and tactfully changed the subject, which evidently was not altogether pleasing to our host. I concluded that he had found the east wing of the house something of a white elephant, and was ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... that he moved as though he had no power in his left side?" he said. "Foster and Broomfield, come here and help me. Armadale, you go and tell Miss Carrington tactfully." ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... regret to the Schoolmarm that, for some reason which she could not reach, she had never been able to break through the curious reserve of the little half-breed, who, superficially, seemed so transparently frank. Each time that she made the attempt, she found herself repulsed—gently, even tactfully, ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... appointed a commission which set to work to obtain the information necessary for a judicial settlement of the boundary, and both Great Britain and Venezuela tactfully expressed a readiness to cooperate. Their labors, however, were brought to a close by a treaty between the two disputants providing for arbitration. A prominent feature of the treaty was an agreement that fifty years' control or settlement of an area ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... friendly solicitude. But within these limits he varied his tone to suit the temperament of the patient. Sometimes he was firm, sometimes gently bantering. He seized every opportunity for a little humorous by-play. One might almost say that he tactfully teased some of his patients, giving them an idea that their ailment was absurd, and a little unworthy; that to be ill was a quaint but reprehensible weakness, which they should quickly get rid of. Indeed, this denial of the dignity of disease is one of the characteristics ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... convention thought that it was representative enough and of sufficient size and standing in the country to warrant asking the President to do this one thing. He could have declined the invitation and no one would have been offended. He could have said he was an anti-suffragist. He could have tactfully omitted his opinion and confined his time to greetings and welcome as Chief Executive to the convention as a large organization of the women of the nation. At the point where the supposed hissing occurred, it was as if the speaker had ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... at a tangent. He wondered if this Patricia person could not (tactfully) be induced to take her bath after breakfast, as Agatha did? after he had his? Why, confound the girl, he was not responsible for there being only one bathroom in the house! It was necessary for him to have his bath ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... grunted. Ellis, suggesting that they take a look at the other defense, tactfully led him away, leaving father and son together. They had not seen each other since the Emergency Health Committee meeting. Something of the quack's glossy jauntiness faded out of his bearing as ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... worried," rejoined Mrs. Howland. "What a pretty home you have, Kate," she added, tactfully changing ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... high-souled women who should leaven the race. She determined also to be the life and soul of the staff-room—the general peace-maker, confidante, and consoler, beloved by one and all. She determined to seize tactfully upon every occasion of serving the Head, and acting as a buffer between her and disagreeables of every kind. She arranged a touching scene wherein Miss Farnborough, retiring from work and being asked ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... suddenly rather small and insignificant in her girlish white net frock among all the glittering costumes about her. It is sad to confess that her anger at Elinor returned hotly as she thought of the forbidden trimming. That Rosamond had tactfully ignored to speak of its absence made her more angry ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... marked an immense step forward in her social career; without running after the patronage of influential personages she had seen it quietly and tactfully put at her service. People such as the Grafin von Tolb were going to be a power in the London world for a very long time to come. Herr von Kwarl, with all his useful qualities of brain and temperament, might conceivably fall out ...
— When William Came • Saki
... went on Dorothy, tactfully. "We call him 'Abdul Hamid.' You know the masculine nature is ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... over to the bell and rang it. She wanted to prepare the solicitor for the possibility of a match between her son and her niece. She would do it NOW and do it tactfully. ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... voice, and with the aplomb of a perfect hostess who has rectified the gaucherie of an awkward guest, she pressed upon me another cup of the custard coffee, and tactfully inquired of the supposedly embarrassed Mrs. Judge Robinson if she did not think this was very warm weather ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... another. All is a matter of choice and adjustment to the particular needs in which all the personal factors of inherited constitution, acquired adjustments, social surroundings, temperament, and education, and the probable later development have to be most tactfully weighed. Yet this general treatment may take and very often ought to take the opposite direction, not towards rest but towards work, not towards light distraction but towards serious effort, not towards reduction of engagements but towards energetic ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... women and brave girls in the audience went out into the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Others remained, rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhood of Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends of the author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknown phase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemed to know what she was doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere with Penrod ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... torture of the past seemed nothing in the light of this one thing—that she was herself again, to meet him hand to hand and eye to eye. He entered the quiet room and crossed its dimly lighted spaciousness to the bed. The nurse rose tactfully and busied herself among the ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... Mr. Allendyce tactfully ignored the scorn in her voice. "Exactly," he purred. "Exactly. Gordon is the child's name. A very ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... they were," said Hamilton. "But poems needn't be comic," he added a little more tactfully, as he saw Bones's colour rising, "they needn't be comic to excite people's amusement. The most solemn and sacred things, the most beautiful thoughts, the most wonderful sentiments, rouse ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... atmospheric change as unswervingly as any barometer, and switch in a moment from "Good-bye Girls, Good-bye" to the love duet from Faust. She can play Chopin just as well as she can play Sousa, and she will tactfully strike up "It's Always Fair Weather" when she sees a crowd of young fellows sit down at a table; "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" to welcome a lad in khaki; and the very latest fox trot for the party of ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... matter he had met with much opposition, this time from his master. The aged monarch clung to the title King of Prussia; but if the title of Emperor was a political necessity, he preferred the title "Emperor of Germany"; nevertheless, the Chancellor tactfully but firmly pointed out that this would imply a kind of feudal over-lordship of all German lands, and that the title "German Emperor", as that of chief of the nation, was far preferable. In the end the King yielded, but he retained a sore feeling against his trusted servant for some time ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... true that it had become a public scandal. You met them so many times a day driving together, motoring together, playing golf together, that you were embarrassed for them and did not know which way to look. But they gloried in their shame. If you tactfully pretended not to see them, Helen shouted at you. She made you feel you had been caught ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... his remark, "it was all over in a moment," and trembled; but Gerald tactfully drew his attention to something else, and dinner proceeded peaceably; but he had a horrible fondness for that knife, and, when dessert was put on the table, kept it in his hand, "to ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various |
