"Tact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her woman's tact and mother's forethought, saw all! She saw that in the honest heart of her poor boy, unconsciously there was growing up a strong, ardent, earnest passion for the lovely girl with whom he was thrown in such close, intimate, daily association, and who was certainly not indifferent in her feelings ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... listen to the end of the story," said Phineas. "I may tell you that I always regarded myself, with my Scots caution, as a model of tact and discretion; but after many conversations with Doggie, I'm beginning to have my doubts. I also imagined that I was very careful of my personal belongings; but facts have ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... and classic essay on Otway:—'The choice of the part showed the kindly tact of the shrewd Mrs. Behn. The king had to speak the few first words, to which the audience never listens, to make some brief replies in the first scene, and then not to speak again until the end of the fourth act. In the fifth act he had to make rather a long speech to Smith ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... different business callings and (up to a certain point) unvarying success, offers five thousand pounds to any professor of deportment or member of the Old Nobility in reduced circumstances who will impart to him suavity of manner, tact and diplomatic courtesy, the lack of which constitutes the sole obstacle to his achieving immortality. If the instructor can succeed in making him (the Cabinet Minister) really beloved ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... to know his fate. He was received with ceremonious courtesy. At first he was a good deal embarrassed, but this was no sooner seen than it was relieved by Mrs. Dodd with tact and gentleness. When her turn came, she said, "Your papa? Of course you have communicated this step ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... laugh, Cyril was so evidently in earnest; her nice tact guarded her from making such a ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... 1664.," he says, "the Duc de Beaufort had by his insubordination and levity endangered the success of several maritime expeditions. In October 1666 Louis XIV remonstrated with him with much tact, begging him to try to make himself more and more capable in the service of his king by cultivating the talents with which he was endowed, and ridding himself of the faults which spoilt his conduct. 'I do not doubt,' he concludes, 'that ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... about, "If it's not true, it's not worth having." He is never late, 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 the luxury of ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Schuyler was a staggering blow to Hamilton. The great statesman had achieved success as secretary of the treasury, but as a political manager, his lack of tact, impatience of control, and infirmity of temper, had crippled the organisation. In less than three years the party had lost a United States senator, suffered the separation of a family vastly more important than federal appointees, and sacrificed ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... one knee and kissed the hand she offered, and without further remonstrance obeyed her desire. Isabel came in shortly, and with the tact of true kindness she made no remark, but simply took the chair beside Ortiz, and said, in her usual voice and manner: "Good morning, Captain. We are glad to see you. Did you meet ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... magnificent treasure of results! If Shakespeare had done no more, he would have stood the greatest intellect of the world. How all alive must those eighteen years have been with intense and varied exertion! His quick discernment, his masterly tact, his grace of manners, his practical judgment, and his fertility of expedients, would needs make him the soul of the establishment; doubtless the light of his eye and the life of his hand were in all its movements and plans. Besides, the compass and accuracy of information displayed ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... patience of a people that felt itself eternal, this immensity had been assimilated and fused. A few fortresses and legions on the frontiers, a stretch of soldiery at any spot an invasion might be feared; a little tact, a maternal solicitude, and that was all. Rome governed unarmed, or perhaps it might be more exact to say she did not govern at all; she was the mistress of a federation of realms and republics that ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... and had lost a limb 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 ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... turned out, most admirable choice, in finding a fresh attendant for an invalid brother, and there was nothing now to be done but to rest on my oars and be thankful that a most trying time—requiring infinite patience and tact—was over. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... governing; it is as easy to govern a regiment as a school or a factory, and needs like qualities, system, promptness, patience, tact; moreover, in a regiment one has the aid of the admirable machinery of the army, so that I see very ordinary men who ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... debate on the enfranchising question, and to while away the time, and from kindness of disposition, spoke, and spoke with warmth and favour, of his grandson. The polished Lord Monmouth bowed as if he were much gratified by this notice of one so dear to him. He had too much tact to admit that he had never yet seen his grandchild; but he asked some questions as to his progress and pursuits, his tastes and habits, which intimated the interest of an ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... a high-handed superiority over all Ulster, and John the Proud was not the man to let his claim lie idle in any district of that wide-spread Province. But authority which has fallen into decay must be asserted only at a propitious time, and with the utmost tact; and here it was that Elizabeth's statesmen found their most effective means of attacking O'Neil. O'Donnell, who was his father-in-law, was studiously conciliated; his second wife, a lady of the Argyle family, received costly presents from the Queen; O'Reilly was created ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child's mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... so brave and strong as I seem. If I were, how did I become so? With the tact and delicacy of a woman, yet with the strength of a man, you broke the crushing force of the first blow, and have helped me ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... some historic truth lies below the garbled tale of shipwreck and resurrection is partly proved by the physical traits of their descendants,—of those men, in fact, whose immediate ancestors, employed at first as messengers or spies of Maratha chieftains, by innate cleverness, tact, and faculty for management gradually welded together the loose Maratha confederacy and became directors of the internal and external politics of the Peshwa's dominions. For to this day the true Chitpavan perserves the fair skin, the strange grey eyes, the aspect of refined strength ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... Mrs. Ogilvie, 'that tact is becoming a little overdone, and that it generally succeeds in accentuating a difficult situation, or in making it impossible? Women are horribly tactful as a rule, and that is why men's society is preferable ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... the Lion. "I have plenty of tact, but really there won't be any need," and the Pleasant-Faced Lion again chuckled softly ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Europe to relearn how expedient, how delicate, and how lovely Incident may look when Symmetry has grown vulgar. The lesson was most welcome. Japan has had her full influence. European art has learnt the value of position and the tact of the unique. But Japan is unlessoned, and (in all her characteristic art) content with her own conventions; she is local, provincial, alien, remote, incapable of equal companionship with a world that has Greek art in its ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... reality the most delicate piece of tact and consideration, for it was, of course, Erica's delight and ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... employed, the rebellion was disorganized for a while, but the Spanish authorities had not the tact to follow up this coup by temperate and conciliatory measures towards their wavering quondam foes. Persons who had been implicated in the rebellion were re-arrested on trivial trumped-up charges and imprisoned, whilst others were openly treated as seditious suspects. The priests started a furious ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... surprised him, developing a tact and self-command, a knowledge of finesse that he would not have believed possible in a rough and uneducated mountaineer. But the same quality, the wonderful perception, or rather intuition, that had made Wood a military genius, was serving ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... 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. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... whole the Society's work among the Jews of Teheran, Hamadan and Isfahan has been most encouraging, and this is to be put down entirely to the tact and personal influence of Mr. Garland, who is greatly respected by Jews and Mahommedans alike. No better testimony to the appreciation of his work could exist than the fact that in his interesting ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... 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 had ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... "You must know, then, that this ineptitude, inflicted on me by an eccentric editor for translation, drove me to madness, and not an hour ago I cast it from my window in disgust. It is a novel entirely devoid of taste and tact, and it had the clumsiness to alight on my landlord's head. Being a man of small nature, he retaliated by demanding ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... will be no war, that the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope will suffer no setback in his brilliant career, that the indiscreet Sovereign will receive no punishment for his indiscretion, that the Prime Minister will have no European complication to deal with, and that with a little tact and management upon our part nobody will be a penny the worse for what might have been a ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... replies she, stiffly, the very fact of having to mention the residence of the detested Desmond making her heart beat violently. But Terry is a person blind to speaking glances and deaf to worded hints. In effect, Terry and tact are two; so he goes on, unheeding his aunt's evident disrelish for ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... prompt and straightforward in action, and is pleasant and agreeable in manner and speech. Moreover, he is a man of consummate tact. I remember in 1874, when he was Mayor, and the Prince and Princess of Wales paid a visit to Birmingham, there was much wondering and questioning as to how he would comport himself on the occasion. At that time he was credited with cherishing rather strong ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... courted her notice as little as they would have done any where else, she was too much elated and flustered, and overheated to think about it. One of her principal concerns was to keep her eye on her husband, who, being a shy, timid man, with very little tact, was not much calculated for playing the host on such an occasion. He had, however, been doing better than she expected, when, a little before supper, he wandered through the crowd to where she was standing, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... husband, unless he were absolutely impossible—and of course he would not be—would be welcomed everywhere because of her. She was rich. She had unusual charm. She was quick witted, intelligent, well read, full of tact and knowledge of the world. Surely she could be a splendid companion, even a great aid, to any man of the least ambition. And she ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... and what has been. That, however, is the distinctive problem for historical investigation. And here, above all, much depends on philological knowledge and sagacity; but still more on that historical tact which understands how inferences should be drawn. This demands much acquaintance with what is real, and with purely historical material; much practice, and, as regards character, much self-denial. In this judicium subactum of the historian lies the difference between ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... thanks the last time I tried it," she ruefully remarked. "But perhaps if I used an awful lot of tact—" ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... of tact, laughed the subject away and pretended not to notice Penelope's real distress. But when they had reached Devenham House, she went to the telephone and ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... beautiful scenic descriptions, and displays an intimate acquaintance with all phases of human character; all the characters being exceedingly well drawn. The moral is of a most wholesome character, and the plot, incidents, and management, give evidence of great tact, skill and judgment, on the part of the writer. It is a work which the oldest and the youngest may alike read ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... was glossy and waved in the most becoming fashion, her clothes were well cut, her gloves and shoes immaculate. She had an artistic temperament, and loved to be surrounded by pretty things. She was rather a favourite at The Woodlands, for she had few sharp angles and possessed a fair share of tact. If the girls laughed sometimes at what they called her "high-falutin' notions" they nevertheless respected her opinions and admired her more than they always chose to admit. It was an accepted fact that Ulyth stuck to her word and generally carried through anything that ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... seemed to flutter uncertainly in my clasp, just as a bird flutters wildly without aim at the limit of its tethering cord, and when I released her she sank into the wire chair at our side with a look of exhaustion stamped on the soft, delicate face. I saw that it would require all my tact and care to make this evening a success, and I determined that it should be one for her. Standing there beside her, looking down on her light head, I made a rough, mental examination of my thoughts. I seized those that had anything of ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... fine instance of the unfailing tact of Peter Bruce that, seeing the carriage out of which the two came, and taking in the situation, he made no offer of the first class, but straightway dusted out a third with his handkerchief, and escorted them to it cap in hand. Drumtochty restrained ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... Francisco. It is said that this enthusiastic gathering of all ranks was equalled only by the thousands who had assembled here only a short time before to pay honours to the memory of President McKinley, whom the people loved. Bishop Doane of Albany presided with his accustomed tact and force, and, after suitable devotions, introduced the four speakers. The first of those who addressed the assemblage was the Right Rev. Edgar Jacob, D.D., the Lord Bishop of Newcastle, who represented the Archbishop of Canterbury. He said that there were four methods ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... the lively Cecily's appreciation of her aunt might have been based upon another virtue of that lady—namely, her exquisite tact in dealing with the delicate situation evolved from the always possible relations of the two cousins. It was not to be supposed that the servants would fail to invest the young people with Southern romance, and even ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... respect their territory, and conciliate them by presents, and whatever influence he gains over them, he must use in the endeavour to persuade them to put an end to the wars, which they so often make on each other in the hope of carrying off slaves. Much tact would be needed, for should he succeed in stopping the slave trade, while wars were still waged among the chiefs, it might well come to pass that, for want of a market, the prisoners would, in such a case, be slaughtered. Should he find it needful to exercise ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... or sympathy in public causes. The qualification for a biographer is not in the least that he is a virtuous person, or a second cousin, or a dear friend, or a trusty colleague; but that he knows how to write a book, has tact, style, taste, considerateness, sense of proportion, and a good eye for the beginnings and ends of things. The third volume, then, tells us little about the person to whom they relate. The two volumes of autobiography tell all that we can seek to know, and the reader who judges ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... 'For the tact of Mr. Moore's conduct in this affair, I have not to answer; but, if indelicacy be charged upon me, I scorn the charge. Neither will I submit to be called Lord Byron's accuser; because a word against him I wish not to say beyond what is painfully wrung from ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... much practice "to look modest," had become perfect in that requisite before the upraising of the curtain; and the young gentlemen cast in those characters sustained them with much tact, and knowledge of the demeanor of well-bred ladies: so much so, indeed, that after they had got through their parts, they were added, still in character, to the galaxy of "decorations before the curtain;" and the only faux pas I noticed was by "Marion," who, in being led to her seat ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... evenings passed. The young woman came regularly to milk the healthy cow or to attend to the sick one, but never allowed her vision to stray in the direction of Oak's person. His want of tact had deeply offended her—not by seeing what he could not help, but by letting her know that he had seen it. For, as without law there is no sin, without eyes there is no indecorum; and she appeared to feel that Gabriel's espial had made her an indecorous woman ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... circumstances similar to this, and invariably M. Cartel—and, moving in his shadow, the demure Jacqueline—had proffered a generous hospitality—talking to him of work, of politics, of Paris, but with a Frenchman's inimitable tact. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... By gifts of tact, of insight, of diligence, of readiness, that each one of us thinks he possesses, that any one of Nippon's 30,000,000 inhabitants might have possessed and exercised, Hideyoshi rose, step by step, until he directed and guided the whole country, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... mind. To be an adequate companion to childhood, one must know so many things. Hilda is fortunate in her mother, for if these poems reveal one thing more than another it is that Mrs. Conkling is dowered with an admirable tact. In the dedication poem to her mother, ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling
... have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside them. Short ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... reserve vanished from that instant. The kindly familiarity of the barrister's words to one who, during many weary days, suspected all men of loathing him as a murderer at large, was directed by infinite tact. ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... one of those household angels who see things to do, and seeing, perform. Silently she slipped into her sphere of usefulness, and became Dawn's helper in the thousand ways which a woman of tact ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... meant to sweep the prince toward his purpose. Any idea of relinquishing his plans had evaporated; the very suggestion of another influence having been sufficient to put him on his mettle and call to life the full energy of his headstrong ambition. He had the tact, however, to remain silent, and to leave Nehal's train of thought uninterrupted. And this required considerable patience and self-control, for the Rajah seemed to forget his existence, and sat staring vacantly in front of him, his head ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... judge) he is not agreeable. His propositions and his allusions are rather too abrupt; he starts topics not altogether naturally; then he has none of the graces of conversation, none of that exquisite tact and refinement which are the result of a felicitous intuition or a long acquaintance with good society, or more probably a mixture of both. The mighty mass of his knowledge is not animated by that subtle spirit of taste and discretion which alone ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... and sisters showed themselves at their best, and that is saying much. Assuming every burden, making every sacrifice, and performing the hardest service, they at the same time displayed consummate tact and address in conciliating their red brethren, taking their meals in common with them, and even adopting the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... impediments to their being more friendly than need be. Each was polite to the other to a certain point, then the one glowered and the other scoffed. It ended in a painstaking keeping of distance between them, a task which, when they were in company, fell often to Mrs. Jardine. She did it with tact, with a twist of her large, humorous mouth toward Strickland if he were by. Admirable as she was, it was curious to see the difference between her method, if method there were, and that of Mrs. Alison. The latter showed ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... question as to which of the two, Villon or Marot, should be regarded as the last poet of the middle ages and the first of modern France. M. Sainte-Beuve, without attempting to precisely solve that little problem, has distinguished and characterized the two poets with so much of truth and tact that there can be no hesitation about borrowing his words: "Was Villon," is the question he puts to himself, "an originator? Did he create a style of poesy? Had he any idea of a literary reaction, as we should say nowadays? What is quite certain is, that he possessed original talent; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the table is beauty, a respect to the common soul of the guests. Everything is unreasonable which is private to two or three, or any portion of the company. Tact never violates for a moment this law; never intrudes the orders of the house, the vices of the absent, or a tariff of expenses, or professional privacies; as we say, we never "talk shop" before company. Lovers abstain from ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... given but a very scanty description of the system pursued at Ralahine. The arrangements were in most respects admirable, and reflected the greatest credit upon Mr. Craig as an organiser and administrator. To his wisdom, energy, tact, and forbearance the success of his experiment was in great measure due, and it is greatly to be regretted that he was not in a position to repeat the attempt under more favourable circumstances." ("History of a ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... was unbounded. His energy he tempered with all the tact and discretion his knowledge of men, and his experience in handling them, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... his forward march. I wish to send a despatch to him, and I know no one to whom I could better intrust it than yourself. It is a mission of honour, but of danger. However, you have already exhibited such tact and discretion, as well as bravery, that I believe if anyone can reach the duke, through the two royal armies that are trying to intercept him, you can do so. Will you undertake ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... efficient, gave her a sense of physical well-being. She had never really liked, or deeply admired, or trusted any other woman, and the real depths of her feeling for this one surprised her. Mrs. Vandervelde possessed the supreme gift of putting others at their ease; she had tact, and was at the same time sincere and kind. Nancy found herself at home in this fine house in which life moved ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... to her with extraordinary tact and consideration, and she was very conscious of it. Since her sudden return ten days before from the visit which had been meant to separate them, he had not spoken a word to her privately, except a shy sentence or two of condolence, stammered out with downcast eyes, but which from the simplicity ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... lady's object in ascertaining that he was still free from a matrimonial engagement? If the idea had occurred to him in time, he might have alluded to her domestic life, and might have asked if she had children? With a little tact he might have discovered more than this. She had described her feeling toward him as passing the ordinary limits of gratitude; and she was evidently rich enough to be above the imputation of a mercenary motive. Did she propose to brighten those ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... I discovered that I had never been aware before that the Civil War in America was not printed matter but a fact only about ten years old. Of course. He was a South Carolinian gentleman. I was a little ashamed of my want of tact. Meantime, looking like the conventional conception of a fashionable reveller, with his opera-hat pushed off his forehead, Captain Blunt was having some slight difficulty with his latch-key; for the house before which we ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... wondered what 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
... of those who are "not in society" to facilitate its dissolution by violently pounding it into small pieces. But no reader of "An Unsocial Socialist" needs to be told how, by the exercise of a certain considerate tact (which on the outside, perhaps, seems the opposite of tact), I have contrived to maintain genial terms with men and women of all classes, even those whose opinions and political conduct seemed ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... to eat. Blair sat at the other end of the table in black silence. Once he looked at Mrs. Richie with an agonized gratitude in his beautiful eyes, like the gratitude of a hurt puppy lapping a friendly and helping hand; for Mrs. Richie, with the gentlest tact, tried to help him by ignoring him and talking to the young people about her. Elizabeth, too, endeavored to do her part by assuming (with furtive glances at David) a languid, young-lady- like manner, which would have made Blair chuckle ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... tact enough to perceive there had been a slight jar in the feelings of these two young women, and he adroitly changed the conversation. With Eve he had entire confidence on the score of provincialisms, and, without exactly anticipating the part Grace would be likely to ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... he, in common with the whole world, had heard—but of course put delicately, very delicately; some slight reference to her distinguished parents and the part her family had played in the history of England—made, of course, with proper tact; a sentence or two about her eldest brother Lord Winchcombe, who had won his V.C. in the late war under circumstances which could only cause—he might or might not add this—every Englishman's heart to beat higher than ever with pride, and the first steps towards ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... me a man thoroughly fit for his position. An American, in an office of similar responsibility, would doubtless be a much superior person, better educated, possessing a far wider range of thought, more naturally acute, with a quicker tact of external observation and a readier faculty of dealing with difficult cases. The women would not succeed in throwing half so much dust into his eyes. Moreover, his black coat, and thin, sallow visage, would make him look like a scholar, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Foremen had been obtained from Europe. No fewer than seven separate languages were spoken in the shops. Wady Halfa became a second Babel. Yet the undertaking prospered. The Engineer officers displayed qualities of tact and temper: their director was cool and indefatigable. Over all the Sirdar exercised a regular control. Usually ungracious, rarely impatient, never unreasonable, he moved among the workshops and about the line, satisfying himself that all ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... drama. But I will not stand by and see the girl, whose very loneliness is a plea, sacrificed without some kind of a struggle to help her. At the present writing I feel about as effective as a February lamb, and every move calls for tact. Wish I had been born with a needle wit instead of a Roman nose! For if Uncle has a glimmer of a suspicion that I would befriend Sada at the cost of his plans, so surely as the river is lost in the sea, Sada would disappear from my world until it was too late for ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... put it to himself, "would make Lily Bell, with her ringlets and her pantalettes, look like thirty cents." Surely in the circle of their friends and relatives there must be a little girl who could be borrowed and introduced—oh, casually and with infinite tact!—into their menage for a few months. Mr. Prescott, well pleased with himself, winked a Machiavellian wink and sought his wife, ostensibly to consult her, but in reality to inform her that he had made up his mind, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... from the mother country. And even after the character of the contest became thus changed from one for British constitutional rights to one for Republican independence, the Loyalists had nothing to do with the selection of British generals, or with their incapacity, their want of tact and energy, their mistakes and rapacity, together with that of their officers and soldiers, from all which the Loyalists grievously suffered. In the camp, on the march, and in the field of battle, the Loyalists were always on the alert, and performed the severest ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... appalling in the sudden apparition of the Countess. She saw the bed of death by the dim light of the single candle, and her tears flowed at the sight of her father's passive features, from which the life has almost ebbed. Bianchon with thoughtful tact left the room. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... the natural tact of Fuller," said Ashton-Kirk as he threw himself once more upon the sofa and began recharging the briar pipe. "But he has done amazingly well at times. He has a pushing way about him and seems to do things by sheer pressure in which a ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... will need tact to no ordinary degree. The Scotch are as peppery a race as the Irish are, and it will be necessary in no way to hurt their feelings, or to excite among them the smallest degree of discontent at being drilled and led by men who are ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... Learn at once just exactly what the inquirer wishes to know. This is not always easy. Tact and a little patience ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... which Elsie by her ready tact and sweet sympathy, free from the slightest approach to patronage, drew from the girl the story of their sorrows, privations and fears ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... his clear-headedness and business tact, had full charge of both mines, the "General" working under him in the shaft, and Fearless Frank ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... country, is generally considered to be the most difficult in India. And, as will be seen further on, it requires no small amount of study and observation in order to determine how best to lay out money in the purchase or manufacture of manures. There is also occasion for much tact, firmness, and temper, in dealing with the labourers and overseers on the estates, and also the native population with which nearly all the estates in Mysore are surrounded. Then much tact and judgment ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... himself always to the quality of his materials. If others of his works, both in elevation of fancy and in energy of pathos and character, tower far above this, we have here on the other hand occasion to admire his nice powers of discrimination and his perfect knowledge of courts and the world. What tact was requisite to represent before the eyes of the queen [Footnote: It is quite clear that Henry the Eighth was written while Elizabeth was still alive. We know that Ben Jonson, in the reign of King James, brought the piece again ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... 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 ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... with her brother as he fulfilled new and arduous duties in the transcription of dispatches, he comprehended that the secret alliance between the Princess and Murat had been purely political, and with what tact she had won him to reconciliation and co-operation ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... you had I known it, and I reproved Jasper for his neglect. Do not be needlessly troubled, Aunt. There is no blemish on Mrs. Snowdon's name, and, as the wife of a brave and honorable man, she is received without question; for beauty, grace, or tact like hers can make their way anywhere. She stays but a week, and I will devote myself to her; this will save Jasper, and, if necessary, convince Tavie of my indifference—" Then he paused ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... dread 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 advance ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... the Almighty and not upon himself, were his guiding convictions, which he transmitted to his Spanish successors. Not only was Philip a man of principles and ideals, but he was possessed of a boundless capacity for work and an indomitable will. He preferred tact and diplomacy to war and prowess of arms, though he was quite willing to order his troops to battle if the object, in his opinion, was right. He was personally less accustomed to the sword than to the pen, and no clerk ever toiled more ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... as my companion was concerned, had not the thought suggested itself that I should always have it in my own power to aid my friend. Letting something of this sort escape me, Rupert was not slow in enlarging on it, though this was done with great tact and discretion. He proved that, by the time we both came of age, he would be qualified to command a ship, and that, doubtless, I would naturally desire to invest some of my spare cash in a vessel. The accumulations of my ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... soften his anger. And she was sorry that Dickie, with his odd, wistful, friendly face and his eyes so wide and youthful and apologetic for their visions, should think that she was angry or disgusted. She wrote her letter in a little glow of rescue, and was proud of the tact of that reference to his "fall down the steps"—for she reasoned that the self-esteem of any boy of nineteen must suffer poignantly over the memory of being knocked down by his father before the eyes of a strange girl. She wrote her note and ran down the stairs, then stopped to wonder how ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... tact and was absolutely fearless. In 1857, during the Inkpadoota trouble, the father of a young-Indian, who had been wounded by the soldiers of Sherman's battery, came with his gun to the mission house to kill her brother. Aunt Jane met him with a plate of food for himself and an offer to send some ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... up and down the world, on behalf of a Leipsic firm of which he was a member, in search of rare and curious books. For there are copies of books which have a well-known pedigree like famous jewels, and whose acquisition, a matter of infinite tact, gives rise, I was told by Herr Dose, to the most exquisite thrill known to man. He brought me on that morose afternoon a copy of the "Synonima," in Italian and French, of St. Fliscus, printed by Simon ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... so they conversed—stiffly at first, and then, seeing that she showed no signs of presuming, with less reserve. Mesdames de Breville and Carre-Lamadon, having a great deal of "savoir vivre," knew how to make themselves agreeable with tact and delicacy. The Countess, in particular, exhibited the amiable condescension of the extremely high-born lady whom no contact can sully, and was charming. But big Madame Loiseau, who had the soul of a gendarme, remained unmoved, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Dalrymple's Appendix, (p. 103,) it appears, that the king had signed himself, without the participation of his ministers, a secret treaty with France, and had obtained a pension on the promise of his neutrality; a tact which renders his royal word, solemnly given to his subjects, one of the most dishonorable and most scandalous acts that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... library was reverently surveyed, and many were the sportive sallies elicited by the victor's obvious inability to carry away what he had won. Suavely exultant, ready with his reply to every flattering address, Bruno Chilvers exhibited a social tact in advance of his years: it was easy to imagine what he would become when Oxford terms and the seal of ordination had matured ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Paris, not as the triumphant victor, the indomitable conqueror of Europe, but as a defeated general, bent on retrieving some singularly grievous errors by tact and perseverance. Yet something never to be regained was lost to the Man of Destiny. The spell which had deified him was broken. Napoleon the Invincible, the Infallible, had blundered. "This supernatural man, this god—or devil—had ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... woman who made you feel this, for sincerity was written all over her. I could not help wondering why she gave Mr. Cooke line in the matter of household decoration, unless it was that he considered Mohair his own, private hobby, and that she humored him. Mrs. Cooke was not without tact, and I have no doubt she perceived my reluctance to talk about her husband ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... war. On the one side we have Pompey, proud and confident, but unprepared because he was so confident; and on the other, Csar, cool and unperturbed, relying not only on his army, but also upon the friends that his money and tact had made among the soldiers with him, no less than among those at Capua and elsewhere, upon which his ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... his personal bravery which made him regardless of all risks and repeated threats of assassination, his infinite tact, resourcefulness and good humor, coupled with the weightier abilities as a ruler and a statesman, have made his name most justly the most famous in our history with the possible exception of George Washington's. There is an infinite fund of anecdotes concerning him and ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... endless variety, each one almost a world in itself, and all, enticing the imagination into regions unbounded, of charm and loveliness, suggested, though not made visible, but to the mind's eye? We remember in our school days giving Virgil credit for much tact in endeavouring to make a gentleman of AEneas, and succeeding too for a while in raising the more than equivocal character of his hero, by placing him in the picture-gallery of the Queen of Carthage, and giving him leisure to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... the 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, and liberty to fish and hunt on the unconceded domain ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... an opinion can only be based on a strange confusion between subject and treatment. There is scarcely any subject not tainted by impurity, that cannot be treated with entire refinement. Washington Irving wrote to Dickens, most justly, of "that exquisite tact that enabled him to carry his reader through the veriest dens of vice and villainy without a breath to shock the ear or a stain to sully the robe of the most shrinking delicacy;" and added: "It is a rare gift to ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... 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 merely in ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... to time partially distracted his attention from the only real thing in the room—the girl sitting opposite him. And yet he flattered himself that neither his host nor hostess noticed anything remarkable about his behaviour. In fact he considered that he was a model of tact and discretion. . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... the covenant and definitely given his allegiance to the Parliamentarian party. He was marked out for promotion as a known man of great ability, and he had made many friends among influential persons by his courtesy and tact. It was inevitable that a distinguished Oxford man should be chosen for an important post in the University, which Cromwell desired to convert from a hotbed of Royalism into a nursery of Puritans. Wilkins was qualified by his common-sense and genial ways for what would have been a hopeless ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... nurseries. But we could find out from our dealers where our coals came from and follow from afar the fortunes of our adopted teams; and Cabinet Ministers, at any rate, could distribute their patronage and their presence with tact over the various ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • 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
... Bandy-legs; for there is a saying to the effect that "babes and fools rush in where brave men hesitate to tread"; which, however, must not be taken to mean that Bandy-legs belonged to either class, although he failed to approach a subject with tact. ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... after those winter holidays a new girl came to the school. She was from the far West, and she did not at first understand or enter into the fun of the other girls. For a while she was without friends there, but gradually Nan Sherwood's sympathy and tact worked a change and Rhoda Hammond became one with ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... the handsomest and one of the best editions of the curious and very interesting class of works to which it belongs, that has yet been given to the public. It is scarce possible to appreciate too highly the tact, judgment, and research displayed by the editor; and rarely indeed, so far as externals are concerned, has the typography of Scotland appeared to better advantage. It is a book decked out for the drawing-room in a suit of the newest pattern,—a tall, modish, well-built book, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... on le soufflait avec de longs tubes, comme on soufflerait un gaz ou un liquide enflamme (Annae Comnenae Alexias, p. 335, lib. XI.—Aeliani et Leonis, imperatoris tactica, Lugd.-Bat. 1613, in-4. part. 2 a, p. 322, Leonis tact. cap. l9.—Joinville, histoire du Saint Louis collect. Petitot tom. II, p. 235). Les ecrivains contemporains disent que l'eau ne pouvait pas eteindre ce feu, mais qu'avec du vinaigre et du sable on ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Guerre, or Strategy, as it is called, is beset with extraordinary difficulties, and we may affirm that very few men have clear conceptions of the separate subjects, that is, conceptions carried up to their full logical conclusions. In real action most men are guided merely by the tact of judgment which hits the object more or less accurately, according as they possess more ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... States in that country. It is just to add that the delicate duty of this protection has been performed by the minister and the consul-general at Paris, and the various consuls in France under the supervision of the latter, with great kindness as well as with prudence and tact. Their course has received the commendation of the German Government, and has wounded no susceptibility ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... For his mother he certainly had none: he was indignant at her treatment of his father, and could find no redeeming quality to make amends for her catalogue of imperfections. Still he had a peculiar tact, by which he avoided any serious altercation. Never losing his own temper, yet quietly and firmly resisting all control, he assumed a dominion over her, from which her feelings towards him, whatever they may have been in his early years, were ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... where's that girl, Reconciliation? Bring first before me the Spartan delegates, And see you lift no rude or violent hands— None of the churlish ways our husbands used. But lead them courteously, as women should. And if they grudge fingers, guide them by other methods, And introduce them with ready tact. The Athenians Draw by whatever offers you a grip. Now, Spartans, stay here facing me. Here you, Athenians. Both hearken to my words. I am a woman, but I'm not a fool. And what of natural intelligence I own Has been filled out with the remembered precepts My father ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... Elderly Gentleman, smiling in the full conviction of having extricated himself from a difficult situation with consummate tact and diplomacy, goes off unsteadily in the direction of Piccadilly, accompanied by a suite of small boys who have kindly resolved to see him through any further adventures that may await his progress. The Cabman remains to discuss the affair at great length on the curbstone. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... send my Aunt Jen, who had once been "in a place" before. Aunt Jen would go, but—she would take her tongue with her. She had her mother's command of language, but was utterly destitute of her tact, lacking also, as was natural, the maternal instinct. As, in a moment of exasperation my grandmother once said of her, "Our Jinnet is dried up like a crab-tree ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... skill and delights are miracles of nature; but her insight and keenness gradually fade as the children grow older. Seldom is the private and ideal life of a young son or daughter a matter in which the mother shows particular tact or for which she has instinctive respect. Even rarer is any genuine community in life and feeling between parents and their adult children. Often the parent's influence comes to be felt as a dead constraint, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... often by the gentle human agencies of which Annie was the type, as with pitying face she bent over the worn and jaded man of the world and hoped and prayed that she might be able to act the part of a true sister toward him. Thorny and guarded was every avenue to his heart; and yet her feminine tact, combined with the softening and purifying influence of his old home, might gain her words acceptance, where the wisest and most eloquent would ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... abolition in the Yeomanry. In this he should receive the support of all good riders, as they know that placid-tempered horses have better paces, higher courage, superior staying power, and greater cleverness and tact in times of danger than excitable ones. In polo, where the legs are far more required for guiding the horse than in hunting, the use of sharp spurs is forbidden, except by special permission. Whyte-Melville points out ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... lines with both nations, using consummate tact and skill. Both Germany and Japan were offended at the English change of front, and were ready to listen to other proposals. To them, he opened up a wide vista of commercial and territorial expansion, or at least its equivalent. Germany was to have the freest commercial access ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... I ought to be interested! I, who cherished every memory of pioneer days! I, who had bitten my lips a dozen times that afternoon, and was glorying in the tact and strength of mind which had avoided this period of ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... requires tact, and may necessitate less directness than courteous explanation: but it should not be so extended as ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... delicate and difficult mission with singular tact, firmness, and good judgment, and made clear to the authorities at the City of Mexico not only the purpose of his visit but also the spirit in which it had been undertaken. But the proposals he submitted were rejected, in a note the full text of which I take the ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... shining talents and character that his fellow men will take a pride in advancing him to conspicuous and responsible trusts. Let a man have a part or all of these qualifications, however, and with them the experience and tact of a lawyer, and he will of course make a more valuable public servant, especially if he is placed in a deliberative body. The British cabinets have always relied vastly on the support afforded them in the house of commons by their attorneys and solicitors general, whether it consisted in the ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews |
