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More "Tact" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and one well worth the watching. Certainly Susan and Mrs. McGuire thought it so. On the one side were persistence and perseverance and infinite tact. On the other were a distrustful antagonism and a palpable longing for an ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... tact. Instead of attempting any ordinary means of expostulation, he pleaded with her not to give way to despair; that Drusus was not yet at the mercy of his enemies; that she, if she would, could do an ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... lie awake at night and study how to save your scheme for the Emperor's marriage? All your grumpy old life you've despised women; but now you're beginning at last to find out that powerful as you are, there are some things a woman with tact and money, nice houses and a good-natured husband can do, which the highest statesman in the land can't undo. How soon shall I make you admit ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... I could leave it to your discretion, love, but a fine tact is not one of your shining ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... begun at the right moment with manly resolution, have effected the happiest results, both politically and socially. A feeble policy has always worked harm, since the statesman lacked the requisite firmness to take the risk of a necessary war, since he tried by diplomatic tact to adjust the differences of irreconcilable foes, and deceived himself as to the gravity of the situation and the real importance of the matter. Our own recent history in its vicissitudes supplies us with the most ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... way across the lawn, and they sat under a cedar-tree. He was awkward and ill at ease, but she had tact enough for both. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... turned into a gloomy abode. Ann was nonplused at the strange behavior of her brother and the unusual reserve of Flea. Floyd from his bedroom endeavored to bring the home to its former cheerfulness; but, with all Ann's energies and the boy's tireless tact, the change did not come. At length Miss Shellington gave up trying to bring things to their usual routine. She spent her day hours in helping Fledra with her school studies and giving Floyd simple lessons at home. Everett came every evening, taking Ann from the ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... servants in fine clothes. How many of us would listen much more respectfully to wisdom, if it lived in a palace, than in 'dens and caves of the earth'? The queen's words in verses 6 to 9 are graceful with a woman's tact, and full of feeling. She confesses that she had come half-doubting, even though she risked the journey, and fervently avows how far fame had been unlike itself in this instance, and had diminished, and not magnified. Then she envies the servants who wait on him, because they are ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the vocal teacher is tact. He must know how to deal with his pupils, how to smooth over the rough places of temperament. He should be able to foster a spirit of comradeship among his pupils, to secure the stimulating effect of rivalry, while avoiding the evils of jealousy. Tact is an important element ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... extended his hand in the white man's fashion. Young Colden had the tact to shake it heartily at once and to say in English, which the ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all his tact to the rescue. "I am a fairy father. Just as you thought, it's a mistake of Jane's about there being no fairies; only the trouble is, fairies aren't so powerful as they used to be in the old days. Now, I should love to be able to stay with you for a long, long time, but because I'm ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... safely, and crept to bed undiscovered: and when the next morning, as was to be expected, found her laid up with something very like a fever, from excitement, terror, and cold, the phantom grew stronger and stronger before her, and it required all her woman's tact and self-restraint to avoid betraying by her exclamations what had happened on that fantastic night. After a fortnight's weakness, however, she recovered and went back to Bideford: but ere she arrived there, Amyas was far across the seas ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... at the same time she could appreciate his tact, forbearance, and generosity in asking no more questions about her visitor. To have shown suspicion of Maud would have been at once to drive her to extremities, while implicit confidence put her on honour and rendered her both unable and unwilling ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... straight on in his career until far beyond range of pedagogue's rod. His trick of making a sudden rush at the heels of unsuspecting persons—and he invariably selected the right sort for his purpose—might often have got me into ugly scrapes, but for the tact with which he invariably ignored his master on such occasions. If pursued, he never came near me for protection, but fled wildly on, assuming the character of a dog "on the loose," belonging to nobody in particular, and quite able to take care of himself. He had a decided objection ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... should, even in a hot climate, produce heavy circles under the eyes, a droop at the mouth corners, and a complete submersion of vivacity, is a problem which Carroil then and there gave up. He had too much tact to question ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Mrs. Blackwood was trying, with exquisite tact, to make my father feel less uncomfortable. "It was the most absurd place to put a bowl of flowers," she asserted cheerfully, "on so slight a table, and so near the book-shelves. I've always declared that an accident would occur; now I can say, 'I told you so!' and that's such ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... know the Bumble! This is a matter for tact, not brute force. We must manage Mademoiselle. She pretends she forgets the time—very well, then, we must take steps to bring it palpably to her notice. Will you leave the matter in my ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... He felt that he had put his foot in it; recalling his own lightly spoken words he felt shocked at his want of tact, and he was casting about for something to say about the sacred city of a friendly nature but not too fulsome, when Byrne opened the door and announced that ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... and to Mr Meyers, who is now supposed to look after British interests since the abrupt departure of Mr Moore, the Consul. I was told that Mr Moore had always been considered a good friend to the Southern cause, and had got into the mess which caused his removal entirely by his want of tact and discretion. There is a fine view from the top of the capitol; the librarian told me that last year the fighting before Richmond could easily be seen from thence, and that many ladies used to go up for that purpose. Every one said, that notwithstanding the imminence ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... just seen how Frau Boehme seconded her husband's attempts to dissuade him from abandoning his legal studies, but her good offices did not end there. A woman of cultivated mind and considerable literary attainments, she evidently saw the promise of the raw Frankfort youth, and, with a feminine tact, to which Goethe bore grateful testimony, she set herself to correct his manners and his tastes. He had brought with him his Frankfort habits of speech, and these under protest he was forced to give up for the modish forms of the smooth-speaking ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... With a tact which avoided the difficulties of a late appearance on the scene of action, the women were the first to arrive; they wished to be on their own ground. Pons introduced his friend Schmucke, who seemed ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... now. Her patience, her courage, her fortitude, her tact, her presence of mind in trying hours; these are the shining virtues which we have to record. Woman as a pioneer standing beside her rougher, stronger companion—man; first on the voyage across a stormy ocean, from England to America; then at Plymouth, and Jamestown, and all the settlements ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... surface, I caught a glimpse, sometimes, of a character of self-reliance, of decision as solid as the depths under the shifting water of his ocean. There was never a false note in his gentle manner, and I grew to trust serenely to his tact and self-respect, and talked to him freely as I chose. Which of course I should not have done. But there was a temptation to which I yielded in watching for the likeness in his face, and in listening for a tone or two of ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... complain somewhat bitterly of her position, begging him to tell her when there was any prospect of her being allowed to take her rightful place—a question her husband was quite unable to answer satisfactorily. Seeing that there was nothing to be got out of him, with womanly tact she changed the subject, and asked after Maria Lee (for whom she entertained a genuine affection)—when he last saw her, how she was looking, if there was any prospect of her getting married, and other questions of the same sort—the result of which was to evoke a most violent, and to her inexplicable, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... ever denied that Denney must have employed a faultless, an incomparable tact, to bring J. Rodney Potts to this agreement. By tact alone had he achieved that which open sneers, covert insult, abuse, ridicule, contumely, and forthright threats had failed to consummate, and in the first flush of the news we all felt much as Westley ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the public speaker should have a well-stored mind. He should have mental culture in a broad way; sound judgment, a sense of proportion, mental alertness, a retentive memory, tact, and common sense,—these ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... those which purport to be faithful renderings of the beliefs of simple people. To this category belong Allan Cunningham's Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry, which first appeared, with one exception, in the London Magazine (1821-23). Cunningham has the tact to preserve the legends of elves, fairies, ghosts and bogles, as they were passed down from one generation to another on the lips of living beings. Later he attempted, in a novel, Sir Michael Scott (1828), ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... another field in which Mr. Chapin's energy and business tact were manifested. In 1854, he was elected president of the Association, which had struggled along, a feeble organization, contending against numerous difficulties. Under his vigorous management the Association was brought to a higher degree of prosperity then it had ever witnessed; the income was ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... hospitable thing he could have done, and was of the tact of courts. He arranged his pince nez, and taking the catalogue, applied himself to it. G. Selden's soul warmed within him. To be listened to like this. To be treated as a gentleman by a gentleman—by "a fine old swell ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... said Dolly, with a woman's tender tact, "she's fondest o' you. She wants to go o' your lap, I'll be bound. Go, then: take her, Master Marner; you can put the things on, and then you can say as you've done for her from the first of her coming ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... ability to guess more nearly than any of his competitors the weight of the refuse. There was nothing he would not buy if the price was right, he wrote his clerk, except tombstones, and Cahews understood, and answered to the best of his ability and tact that the public had long since ceased to talk about that unfortunate little matter, and when Henley returned he would ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Harriet, is without tact, and learns nothing, which is one reason why, in spite of her many good qualities and accomplishments, I cannot get on with her. I breakfasted with her on Sunday morning, and she abused A—— to me—not violently, of course, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... appeared when he laid aside his riding-coat; his age might be between forty and fifty; his cast of features grave and interesting, and his air somewhat military. Every point of his appearance and address bespoke the gentleman. Long habit had given Mrs. Mac-Candlish an acute tact in ascertaining the quality of her visitors, and proportioning ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... remarries. The impulsive girl chafes under the new relationship, being unwilling to share with another the bounteous love of her mother which she had learned to claim wholly for her own. By the exercise of great tact and kindness, the obdurate Dorothy is at last won over, and becomes a ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... ways Pao-Ch'ai was so full of good tact, so considerate and accommodating, so unlike Tai-yue, who was supercilious, self-confident, and without any regard for the world below, that the natural consequence was that she soon completely won the hearts of the lower classes. Even the whole number of waiting-maids would also ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... must discipline the men under him, and readjust their wages; and these duties call for judgment, tact, and judicial fairness. ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and kindness with which Biddy—who with her woman's wit had found me out so soon—had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had all dissolved, like our own marsh ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... wife who gives public addresses; but I am convinced that a great many things are coming to pass—very soon, too—that we don't see in advance. Henry is a gentleman to his finger-tips, and there is not a situation in which he will not conduct himself with tact." ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... me greatly, sir, if you imagine I am to be provoked into contest with you by any taunt which you can utter. I pride myself somewhat in the tact with which I discover a ruffian, and having, at an early period of your acquaintance, seen what you were, I can not regard you in any other than a single point of view. Were you not what I know you to be, whatever might have been the difference of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... is, as usual, short and to the point. St. Clair never wastes words. I do not think he chose his subject or added the postscript out of malice aforethought. It is just that he has not a great deal of tact ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hours when the old Ilga was at the front, domineering and impertinent, and Polly would be called upon to exercise all her tact and patience in order to keep things pleasant during her visits. But, little by little, as the convalescent gathered strength of body she also gained in self-control. Miss Price and Polly were her adored examples of beautiful living, and it was plain that she was honestly ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... incarnation, as a party chief, of other brains and wills, a representative exceeding by far in wisdom and power himself, a man in whom the units of society, millions of them, have their governmental life. No doubt he has great qualities of sympathy, comprehension, understanding, tact, efficient power, in order to become a chief; but he leads by following, he relies on his sense of public support, he rises by virtue of the common will, the common sense, which store themselves in him. Such the leaders of the people have ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... Kerich won him completely by the tact with which she spoke of his mother and grandfather, whom she had known. The warmth and kindness of the two ladies touched his heart; he exaggerated their easy urbanity, their worldly graciousness, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... shall have it, my dear fellow. In a week I will call again, and see how you get on. Then we'll introduce the heroine; that, I can tell you, requires some tact—au revoir. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely, was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive. Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... only a few minutes. I had to deal with men, many of whom had "surrounded" buffaloes in a somewhat similar manner; and it did not require much tact to teach them a few modifications in the game. In five minutes we were all in our places, waiting anxiously and in ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... her conferences 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
... the cutting of precious stones, in all ordinary cases, requires little exertion of any mental faculty; some tact and judgment in avoiding flaws, and so on, but nothing to bring out the whole mind. Every person who wears cut jewels merely for the sake of their ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... August Belmont, Stanley and Richard Mortimer, Major Austin Wadsworth—himself fresh from the Manila campaign—Belmont Tiffany, and others, gave me sums of money to be used for helping these men. In some instances, by the exercise of a good deal of tact and by treating the gift as a memorial of poor young Lieutenant Tiffany, we got the men to accept something; and, of course, there were a number who, quite rightly, made no difficulty about accepting. ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... in cares and vicissitudes. He has lived through wars, insurrections, and revolutions, and with skill and tact has held in check all the contending factions which have striven and are still striving to rend asunder his empire. It is difficult to imagine the Austro-Hungarian monarchy without him. With him it perhaps stands or falls; therefore there is ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... assailed; but it would be a libel on all decency to say that he was suited to the delicate and responsible post he was sent to fulfil. In fact, all his actions prove him to have been without an atom of tact, judgment, or administrative quality, and his nature had a big unsympathetic flaw in it. The fact is, there are indications that his nature was warped from the beginning, and that he was just the very kind of man who ought never ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Mr. Gosse's excellent 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 ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... ancients' upon an urn of alabaster which had been the gift of Winckelmann, and in that city now he was, as the literary executor, preparing annotations on the works of Churchill. Boswell managed with his curious want of tact in such matters, fitting the man who could suggest cards to a dying friend with an uneasy conscience, to hint that the poet had 'bounced into the regions below,' and to render the Il Bruto Inglese, by which the papers of the land referred to Wilkes and ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... negotiations, and he was sent as Commissioner and Charge d'Affaires to Denmark. His mission to the court of that country was, at that period, a highly important one. The negotiations he had to conduct there, required great tact and ability. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... in no small measure to his popularity and security at home. By using his authority over Florence to inspire respect abroad, and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the burghers, Lorenzo displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. His genius for statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare order, equally adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy and to the control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In one point alone he was inferior to his grandfather. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... young days, 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 sea-gulls ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... surroundings such as he had never had before, the young lad learned much of the manners and customs of a king's life, and learned too, from the weakness that he saw in Saul's nature what a king ought to be and do. Probably much of David's tact in dealing with men and circumstances at a later day came from his observations in those early days when he was but a minstrel at the ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the qualities which we wish to see permanently associated with knowledge even after it is safely stored in the mind. If interest is there, future energy and activity will spring spontaneously out of the acquirements. Indirect interest indeed is often necessary and may be a sign of tact in teaching. But it is negative and weak in after results. So far as it produces motives at all they may be dangerous. It cannot build up and strengthen character but threatens to undermine it by cultivating wrong motives. There ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... they unite a quick sight, and a tact of observing when the attention is engaged, or of devising some means to engage it themselves, until the act is done. They are most busy in foggy weather. When in prison, they will be heard to say on such days, "What a shame to lose such a fine day as this!" On great public days, when the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... of the United States forces. Where the offense is committed by a member of some other service and the disgrace to the uniform is obvious, it is the duty of the officer to intervene, or to bring about intervention, rather than to walk out on the situation. This calls for judgment, tact, nerve. The offense must be real, and not simply an offense against one's private sensibilities. But indecencies, exhibitionism and bawdiness of such a nature that if done on a reservation would warrant trial of the individual for unbecoming ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... student, he arrived in Berlin in 1821. A curious spectacle is presented by the Jewish Berlin of the day, dominated by the salons, and the women whose tact and scintillating wit made them the very centre of general society. The traditions of Rahel Levin, Henriette Herz, and other clever women, still held sway. But the state frustrated every attempt to introduce reforms into Judaism. Two great parties opposed each other more implacably than ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... instinctively suckles at once when placed at the breast, but sometimes it has to be taught; by squeezing out a few drops of milk to wet the nipple, the child will usually take hold, or a little sugar and water may be put on the nipple; a little patience and tact are all that is necessary to insure success. But the infant must be taught to nurse at once before the ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... Narayan Singh leading with the air of an old-time butler showing royalty to their rooms. He even ascertained in an aside, that the doctor of the day was busy operating, and broke that good news with consummate tact: ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... Englander again showed her simple tact. "No, no, my dear, it's time I went, and you and Mr. Byrd will want to be alone together your first evening," and she pulled on ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... door and found himself confronting the rubicund countenance and imposing form of Heriot Walkingshaw. Over the shoulder of this apparition he looked into the clear eyes of Frank. They were trying to convey a caution to use whatever tact he possessed; but the artist was too ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... of a special kind. Mr. Hope possessed some external ones which are by no means unimportant. His noble presence, in the first place, gave him a great advantage; and a known name and known antecedents like his were also additional recommendations of great value. Then came his tact, clearness of intellect, memory for names and details, his moral qualities, especially his perfect sense of honour, which gained him the ear of the committees, and, what is still more difficult, enabled him ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... to old oak-logs that are partly blended with the soil. If a log to his taste cannot be found, he sets up his alter on a rock, which becomes resonant beneath his fervent blows. Who has seen the partridge drum? It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much caution and tact it may be done. He does not hug the log, but stands very erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound becomes a continuous, unbroken ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... undertaking at that time. Any one who had been found with this money would have lost his life. For Rothschild to invest it so that he could make money from its use was his object; to do so safely and secretly required a good business tact. The Elector, it is said, studied sometime before he decided to whom he could intrust this vast sum during his absence. Thus it is seen that as Rothschild came of poor parents, and was simply a clerk. It was not so ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... left at the post in a steeplechase. Old Mat didn't follow the race. Instead he watched the struggle between the lad and the young horse he was riding. Monkey gave a masterly exhibition of patience and tact; and Mat, then in his prime and always on the look-out for riding talent, watched it with grunts of pleasure. Monkey won the battle and went sailing after the field he could not hope to catch, cantering ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... have not a moment to myself, being of course entirely occupied with our Imperial guests, with whom I am much pleased, and who behave really with the greatest tact.[54] The Investiture went off very well, and to-day (we came from Windsor) the enthusiasm of the thousands who received him in the City was immense. He is much pleased. Since the time of my Coronation, with the exception of the opening of the great Exhibition, I don't remember anything like ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... madly upon his brother, exposing to hazard the success of all his carefully formed plans, and in fact ruining his cause, the acquired habits of the Phil-Hellene gave way, and the native ferocity of the Asiatic came to the surface. We see Cyrus under favorable circumstances, while conciliation, tact, and self-restraint were necessities of his position, without which he could not possibly gain his ends—we do not know what effect success and the possession of supreme power might have had upon his temper and conduct; but from the acts ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... property there belonging to the famous abbey of the Praemonstratensians, became the cul-de-sac or 'bag-bottom of Fraternity;' the Rue des Moinets took the name of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; while the Rue Ganton, the licensed abode of the social evil of Chauny, received, with exquisite tact and propriety, the name of the Roman hero Scaevola! The monastery of the Holy Cross, founded by Mary of Cleves, Duchesse d'Orleans, about the end of the fifteenth century, was confiscated, and made the headquarters of the Republican ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... though she had been longing all her life for exactly such a treasure. Still, it was not only unnecessary but distinctly unwise to add that it should be placed in her wardrobe for safety, as being much too gorgeous for everyday use. Because all she gained by this consummate tact was another pincushion, not quite so ornate perhaps, but even cruder in colour, and this she was compelled to assign a prominent ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... sixteen," and lack of tact and strength brought me many trials in my endeavors to "teach the young ideas how to shoot correctly." The usual tacks were placed in my chair, causing the war-dances incidental to such occasions; the customary pranks were resorted ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Tregenza to this place and turned her eyes to the sea. It might be that herein existed the possibility of the introduction he desired. He felt that victory probably depended on the events of the next two or three minutes. He owed a supreme effort of skill and tact to Fate, which had thus befriended him, and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... into the lady's presence and carried out his mission with the greatest possible tact, but the Duchess could not control her fury. Seizing a heavy stool, she flung it at the head of the unwelcome messenger, who bowed and retired from the house with the blood streaming from a wound in his forehead. ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... for our influence is sufficiently obvious. Our great leader, James Arthur Bunting, was perhaps the most perfect butler that the world has yet seen; his magnificent presence, plummy voice, exquisite tact, and wide knowledge made him beyond price. We had other butlers whom it would have been almost equally difficult to replace. We had chefs who with a chain of marvellous dinners bound their alleged employers to their chariot-wheels. Nominally, Parliament ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... 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 ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... instructions. It is in fact clear that as long ago as 1913 Austria had determined to crush Serbia, and that in 1913 that determination was only postponed; and postponed not, as we thought at the time, by the tact of Lord Grey at the Conference of London, but only by Italy's refusal to join in the adventure, as we now know from the revelations of San Giuliano and Salandra. Similarly, knowing as we do that England is no exception to the rule that no ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... the room talking with the men and women; they all knew him, and felt well acquainted with such a good-natured face; while Aunt Kindly, with the nicer tact of a good woman, introduced the right persons to each other, and so promoted happiness among those too awkward to obtain it alone or unhelped. Besides this, she took special care of the boys and ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... all that Oldbuck, with his best tact and wisdom, could do to keep Hector MacIntyre from assaulting the officers of the law during the absence of Edie. Two long hours they waited. The carriage had already been ordered round to the door to convey Sir Arthur to prison. Miss Wardour was in agony, her father ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... appointed viceroy. Unfortunately, with the best dispositions, his government was not administered with the tact required to conciliate so irascible a people as the Corsicans. While the viceroy was personally esteemed and beloved, he pursued a course of policy little calculated to calm the irritation which speedily arose. Pascal Paoli felt ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... taken to insure that the patients were being treated for what actually was the matter with them, instead of for something that one doctor had decided they had. Professional etiquette makes it very difficult for a wrong diagnosis to be corrected. The consulting physician, unless he be a man of great tact, will not change a diagnosis or a treatment unless the physician who has called him in is in thorough agreement, and then if a change be made, it is usually without the knowledge of the patient. There seems to be a notion that a patient, and especially when in a hospital, ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... the detective force, proceeded with considerable tact to examine and cross-examine both Pargeter and Vanderlyn concerning the way in which Mrs. Pargeter had spent the earlier part of the previous day—that is, the day on which ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... entirely to blame. In another man's room he had lectured the other man. He, a young man, had lectured the other, who was an old man. It was true that he had done so with the best motives; he had only spoken from a painful sense of duty. But he had shown no tact, he had spoken much too strongly; he had imperilled his own good cause by the injudicious manner in which he had put it forward. At the risk of all rebuffs, he would express his regret; he would go ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... were signed by thousands of male as well as female voters. When the Legislature met, the women were there in force, armed with their voluminous petitions. The gamblers also were there in force and sought to defeat the women by the use of large sums of money, but womanly tact and persuasion and direct personal appeals carried the day against strong opposition. The Legislature passed the bill, but it was the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... during the council at Chillicothe in 1807, or brought in contact with British officers of the highest rank, his manners were entirely free from vulgarity and coarseness: he was uniformly self-possessed, and with the tact and ease of deportment which marked the poet of the heart, and which are falsely supposed to be the result of civilization and refinement only, he readily accommodated himself to the novelties of his new position, and seemed more ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... disapproved his marriage, but that Vanno when he had met the bride would "somehow make it all come right." It would be a terrible thing if this younger son should fall in love with the wrong woman; but it was too early yet to begin preachings and warnings. The cure's kind heart gave him great tact. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... present month is a capital number. Mr. Cunningham has commenced in it, what promises to be an interesting series of papers upon a subject which that gentleman's well-known tact and judgment ill prevent from being objectionable, The Story of Nell Gwyn; and the numerous friends of the late Mr. Amyot—and how numerous were his friends!—cannot but be pleased with the characteristic portrait which accompanies ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... a good-looking stout man with thick, carefully-combed hair, with an embroidered girdle round his lilac silk cassock, appeared to be a man of much tact and adaptability. He made haste to be the first to offer his hand to Arkady and Bazarov, as though understanding beforehand that they did not want his blessing, and he behaved himself in general without constraint. ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... them an account of what had happened the evening before. It was exciting enough to tell about and the girls listened breathlessly. Richard's courage and tact with the outlaws when all the time his sleeve was soaked with blood from the wound in his arm, fired her with ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... evidence, or even that something supernatural had been at work. Once, at least, according to the professor, I had played the part of meddlesome fool, and one of my weaknesses being a short temper, it had required all Zena's tact to keep us from quarreling on that occasion. It came almost as a shock, therefore, when, after a long discussion one evening, he suddenly jumped up and exclaimed: "I'm beaten, Wigan, utterly beaten," and did not ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... mathematical lecturer, and afterwards of classical tutor. He was elected a public examiner of the university in 1804, and in the following year was one of the select preachers. As head master of Harrow (1805-1829) his all-round knowledge, his tact and his skill as an athlete rendered his administration successful and popular. On his retirement he settled down at Gayton, Northamptonshire, a living which had been presented to him by his college in 1814. In 1836 he became ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... and Bertha found him amusing. There always had been a certain mental sympathy between them; in a sense (superficially and humorously), they saw life very much from the same standpoint. With the instinctive tact of the real lover of women he carefully concealed from her the secret that made his home life miserable, instead of merely tedious. It was, simply, that Mary was morbidly, madly jealous of him. He had shown far too soon that ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... teacher, and to encourage home work relating to experiments. This latter is often spontaneous on the part of older pupils, and can be brought about with the smaller ones by the use of a little tact; many of the toys of the present day have some scientific principle at bottom; let the teacher find out what toys his young pupils have, and encourage them to use them in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... Tarahumare tribe, a shaman, called Juan Ignacio. Although he had never been as far as Guadalupe y Calvo, and only twice in his life to Babori-game, and had thus spent all his life in the mountains among his own people, he showed a courtesy and tact that would have graced a gentleman. He took splendid care, not only of myself, but of my men and animals as well, giving us plenty to eat, sending his man to chop wood for us, etc. He was possessed of the nicest temper, and was truthful, a rare quality among Tarahumares, as well ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... came from her lips like an exquisite chant. Her laugh had a ringing sweetness in it, rippling out sometimes like a beautiful chime of silver bells; and when she told a comic story, which she often did with infinite tact and grace, she joined in with the jollity at the end, her eyes twinkling with delight at the pleasure her narrative was always sure to bring. Her enjoyment of a joke was something delicious, and when she heard a good thing for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... be the same thing. If Fowler can get beyond himself, he'll be a statesman. But he's fifty and characters solidify at fifty. He's been a first rate Secretary of State, because he's a first rate international lawyer, because his tact is beyond reproach and because he is forced by the nature of his work to ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... can have been, nay, according to certain abstract theoretic views must have been, 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 ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... into this society with his usual lightness and gaiety. His good nature was inexhaustible, and though he liked to relate his own exploits, he had a little tact in adapting himself to the tastes of his hearers. He was not long in finding out that Alice liked to hear about Philip, and Harry launched out into the career of his friend in the West, with a prodigality ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... are their hearts, deep-rooted their revenge, and violent their language under its impulse, that it is woe to the man who comes within their clutches, if he does not possess an amount of tact sufficient to cope with them. A man who desires to tackle the Gipsies must have his hands out of his pockets, "all his buttons on," "his head screwed upon the right place," and no fool, or he will be swamped before he leaves the place. This I experienced myself ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Mr. Logan, "undoubtedly has something to do with it. But observation, energy, and tact are much more important elements of success. More than sixty years ago a young New-England girl fell desperately in love with an imported straw bonnet which she accidentally met with in a shop. The price was too large for her slender purse, so she determined to make one for herself. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the fire. What were they doing back in Old Boston? Aunt Elizabeth had already condemned the fairy stories as untrue, and therefore falsehoods, so Doris never mentioned them. The child, with her many changes and gentle nature, had developed a certain tact or adaptiveness, and loved pleasantness. She was just a little afraid of Aunt Elizabeth's sharpness. It was like a biting wind. She always made comparisons in her mind, and saw things in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... ancestry. Lawrence was educated at Oxford University, and was a lawyer by profession, and therefore was a young man of rank and promise, while John was engaged in business and resided on a valuable estate at South Cove in Yorkshire. They were young men of brains and tact, fitted by natural endowments and education to lay the foundation of things in a new country. They descended from an ancestry of honor and influence from the twelfth century. That ancestry lived in warlike times. Some of them were renowned for deeds of heroism. All ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... brother—how they had ceased to show sympathy in what he regarded as the essentials of life. Her silence suggested that as she could not speak without casting reflection upon Mrs. Gregory, she would say nothing, and this tact was grateful to his ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... of business his tact and judgment were tested and proved during his joint management of the St. James's with Mr. Hare in 1881. For some time previous to this Mr. Kendal had been on the look-out for a theatre, and his mind wandered towards the St. James's, but it required a large sum of money spending on it ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... huge adjoining ranches. This buying up had to be done in one week, and it was a pure squeeze. Forces had been set in motion that put the seventeen owners between the devil and the deep sea, and Samuel's part was simply to "handle" the matter from a little village near Pueblo. With tact and efficiency the right man could bring it off without any friction, for it was merely a question of sitting at the wheel and keeping a firm hold. Hamil, with an astuteness many times valuable to his chief, had arranged a situation that would ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... this time raised in England in behalf of the Church in Australia, and when the Government perceived that public opinion was awakened in its favour, and that they had succeeded in giving their friends and supporters a tolerably good start, they at length agreed, with the tact peculiar to them, to place the Church of England (at least nominally) upon the same footing with the two other "grand ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Neues Palais at Potsdam, only that in these clothes it looked different. As Uncle entered the room he waved his hand and said, "Let no one rise!" I remember that when Uncle said this at the big naval dinner at Kiel it made a great sensation as an example of his ready tact. He realised that if they had once risen there would have been great difficulty in their order of procedure for sitting down again. He was afraid that the same difficulty might have been felt here in the boarding house. But ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... was shocked and indignant at Mrs. Morton's violence, she was a wise woman, and felt that it would be better tact not to let such a person depart without an attempt at pacification; so she did her best at dignified soothing, and listened to a good deal of grumbling ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of clever little swots," said McTurk, addressing the gas. "They get made prefects before they have any tact, and then they annoy chaps who could really help 'em to look after ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... he says, "it seems far more natural that a man engaged in composing political discourses, imperishable memorials of his power, should neglect not even the smallest details, than that the veneration of painters and sculptors, who are darkly showing forth their manual tact and toil in a corruptible material, should exhaust the refinements of their art on the veins, on the feathers, on the down of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... character which were—and always continued to be—independent of Melrose; and Melrose knew his own interests well enough not to interfere with an obstinate man's religion. While Tyson, after five years, passed on triumphantly to a lucrative agency in the Dukeries, having won a reputation for tact and patience in the impossible service of a mad master, which would carry him through life. Melrose, being Melrose, found it hopeless to replace him satisfactorily; and, as he continued to buy land greedily year after year, the neglected ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... assured Colbert that, could he himself see Canada, he would be disposed to do his utmost for it, knowing that a new country cannot make its own way without being helped effectively at the outset. Talon's tact and firmness of purpose had their reward, for the next year Colbert gave ample proof that he understood Canada's ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... you have always behaved awfully well—with great tact, and all that. But you have not seen how it has been with Malvine; she is quite mad about you, especially since you ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... inelegantly 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, and that it would be her happy privilege to attend ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... preserved by Seneca shew that he had some skill in polishing far-fetched conceits. Our playwright has not fallen into the error of making Nero "out-Herod Herod"; through the crazy raptures we see the ruins of a nobler nature. Poppaea's arrowy sarcasms, her contemptuous impatience and adroit tact are admirable. The fine irony of the ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... if it's a restaurant, as it's sure to be, or at any rate, a place to which a restaurant is attached, go in and get some sort of a meal, keep your eyes open, find out the proprietor, get into talk with him, see if he knows Luigi Dimambro. All you need is tact, caution, and readiness to adapt ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... Baron Cairns of Garmoyle as lord chancellor in 1868 involved the superseding of Lord Chelmsford, an act which apparently was carried out by Disraeli with less tact than might have been expected of him. Lord Chelmsford bitterly declared that he had been sent away with less courtesy than if he had been a butler, but the testimony of Lord Malmesbury is strong that the affair was the result of an understanding arrived at when Lord Chelmsford ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... days—for four, stating he was in need of a bite himself. Before the meal had been finished, I became convinced that the old fellow had a tender spot in his makeup, like all tough outlaws, and, if one had tact enough to discover it, he might have great influence over him; otherwise, we would be obliged to sleep with both eyes open and each with his right hand on the ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... available, adapted to any Cabinet position from Secretary of State down. At one time Lane was slated for the War Department, at another time another department and finally placed as Secretary of the Interior because being a good conservationist, as a Western man he could promote conservation with more tact and less ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... island and crossed the seas, where they continued to hate and to plot against those whose misfortune it had been to get a legacy of the island from their fathers. It would be wearisome to recount the absurdities on both sides: the stupidity or criminal absence of tact from time to time shown by the Home Government—the resolve never to be quiet exhibited by the natives, under the ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... sung three times." Was there ever such exquisite dictation and transcription? Can any one say, after hearing this "Canzonetta sull' aria," that it is unnatural to melodize conversation? With what gracious tact the orchestra gives time to Susanna to set down the words of her mistress! How perfect is the musical reproduction of inquiry and repetition when a phrase escapes ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... away in 1809, with the rank of sub-lieutenant, at the age of eighteen, has had no other education than that due to discipline, to the natural sense of honor of a noble and a soldier: but though he possesses tact, the sentiment of probity, and a proper subordination, his ignorance is gross, he knows absolutely nothing, and he has a horror of learning anything. Oh, dear mother, what an accomplished door-keeper this colonel would have made, had he been ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... and intimate evening. For the first time since our acquaintance I struck a new note in the man. There really is something attractive about him when you once come to know him. But the process of knowing him requires time and tact. He's no' very gleg at the uptak. I've never seen such a tantalizing inexplicable person. All the time I'm talking to him I feel as though behind his straight line of a mouth and his half-shut eyes there were banked ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... but just left the banqueting hall, and bore indications of having passed a somewhat unquiet night, though in different degrees; for while the captain and comedian still staggered confusedly and displayed haggard faces and disordered dresses, the superior tact, constitutional strength, or recuperative powers of the others enabled them to maintain such a demeanor of proper sobriety, that but for a slight flush and the companionship in which they were placed, their late excesses ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... of the defence was due to tact, courage, and seamanship. At the first contact of the fleets, the Spanish towering galleons wished to close, to grapple with their contemptuous enemies, and crush them to death. "Come on!" said Medina Sidonia. Lord Howard came on with the Ark and three other ships, and fired ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... slipping under their legs, put her head under my arm, and took my hand in her mouth; and a whole flock of sheep turned round and ran after us in order to obtain more notice. I had no idea before that any animal but the dog might be tamed to such a degree of instinctive tact, as to perceive whether or not its caresses will be acceptable to a stranger; and I am convinced, that the celebrated Ritson might have made more converts to his Braminical system by importing and exhibiting a Swiss flock, than by writing a book ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... had enough combativeness to fight his way through difficulties. He had great self-reliance, and did not mind obstacles. If he had to take part in disturbances, he was ready, and had tact and tactics. He had a peculiar power of governing men, and a peculiar way of gaining confidence and esteem. He did not show off at all, and was not at all condescending. He had a great deal of sagacity. He regarded as trifles things ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... something of his own enthusiasm. He gained the power over their hearts which a great general gains over his soldiers. His approval, his interest in a man, were the all-absorbing object, the all-sufficient reward; the one punishment feared was dismissal, always inflicted with courtesy and tact, from the honour and the ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... sacredness of the Press; you pitch in everything, as if into a bucket. Such carelessness is inexcusable." Among them was a letter from Colburn, the former husband of his wife. "I am perfectly astounded at you! Have you not the tact to see that such a thing as that should not appear?" And he drew his pen indignantly across it. That was a good lesson for the youth. In such matters, however, he did not spare ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... sheer corruption—there was no other way open to him. He laughed openly at all talk of honesty and purity, and his influence lowered the whole tone of public life.[68] But he kept in touch with the middle classes, was honest personally, and had a large amount of tact and good sense. His power in the House of Commons endured because he understood the management of parliamentary affairs, and had a genius for discerning the men whose support he could buy, and ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... actually a fight. Mr. Neal does not argue quite fairly, for he uses reason while it lasts, and then helps himself out with wit, sentiment and assertion. I should quarrel with his definitions upon almost every subject, but his fervid eloquence, brilliancy, endless resource, and ready tact, give him great advantage. There was a sort of exaggeration and coxcombry in his talk; but his lion-heart, and keen sense of the ludicrous, alike in himself as in others, redeem them. I should not ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... once—but there is something wrong with the conduit that carries sexual magnetism; it has been bent upward to the brain instead of directed straight to the sex for which it was designed. Moreover, she is too coldly and obviously analytical and lacks the tact to conceal it. Men do not mind being skewered when they are out for purely intellectual enjoyment, but ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the most important are those involving his dealings with the other men who determine his work, with witnesses, accused, jurymen, colleagues, etc. These are the most pregnant of consequences. In every case his success depends on his skill, his tact, his knowledge of human nature, his patience, and his propriety of manner. Anybody who takes the trouble, may note speedily the great differences in efficiency between those who do and those who do not possess such qualities. That they are important to witnesses and accused ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... for him (whether she acknowledged this or not) and because he did not come, Angela thought of the man every moment, without being able to put him out of her mind. He had shown such astonishing tact as well as pluck last night, and was so good-looking, that his very lack of cultivation made him more interesting as a study. She would have liked to ask the hotel people about him; whence he came and what was his name; but, of course, she did nothing of the sort. All she ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... tries to interpose, to say a word in favor of his dear Madame "Chorche." But he has no tact. This is the worst possible method of effecting a reconciliation; and Sidonie at ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... Oblonsky for noticing, with his never-failing tact, that he dreaded conversation about the Shtcherbatskys, and so saying nothing about them. But now Levin was longing to find out what was tormenting him so, yet he had not the courage ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... success as an administrator. The greatest achievement of his busy and unselfish life was the suppression of the system of organized murder known as Thuggee, and in the execution of that prolonged and onerous task he displayed the most delicate tact, the keenest sagacity, and ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to this with the rare tact that was characteristic of him, arguing that within the miserable sphere of tangible reality I was right, while Lanza moved upon a higher plane, which was more ideal and more romantic. He went on to add that Lanza and he were both Berbers, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... camp about 3.30 p.m., and our C.O. showed them round. After inspecting an incinerator, a tent, a bath, a Y.M.C.A. hut, and a kitchen, they came to the mess for tea. Our C.O. was a man of immense courtesy and tact. He could answer the same question about an incinerator twice a week without showing the least sign of ever having heard ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... protested. "Try to cure yourself of this passion for being funny at the wrong time. Your comedy is good, but tact is a finer quality than humour. Perhaps you think I have forgotten that morning when I was feeling just as I do to-day and you came to my bedside and asked me if I would like a nice rasher of ham. I haven't and I never shall. You may bring me a brandy-and-soda. Not a ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... touch her piano now. I thought you might take her as an understudy on the organ, and by your influence and association lead her out of herself. You could make her acquaintance through approaching the mother who is a milliner, on business, and your tact would do the rest. In all my large and wealthy congregation I know of no other woman to whom I could appeal for aid in this delicate matter, so I am sure you will pardon me. In fact, I fear were the matter to be known in the congregation at all, it would lead to renewed pain and added ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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 ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... ready tact, dragged Little Sis from under the table, and driving the rest of the flock before her, fled the room and shut the door behind her. On the dark porch she ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... livid, his brows bathed in dew. Convinced that some secret sorrow preyed upon his mind, and would consume his health, it was the dearest as the most natural desire of Adela to become his confidant and consoler. She observed, with the quick tact of the delicate, that he disliked her to seem affected by, or even sensible of, his darker moods. She schooled herself to suppress her fears and her feelings. She would not ask his confidence,—she sought to steal into it. By ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that noble material; but, after all, he handles club, and, judging by the specimens I have seen here, is apt to be clay, not of the finest, himself. Mr. ——— is sensible, shrewd, keen, clever; an ingenious workman, no doubt; with tact enough, and not destitute of taste; very agreeable and lively in his conversation, talking as fast and as naturally as a brook runs, without the slightest affectation. His naturalness is, in fact, a rather striking characteristic, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... excellent drinking song, an excellent marching song (which has now seen service), and a first-rate song about religion to the story of St. Dunstan and the Devil and an account of Mr. Justice Honeybubbe's Decision. But all this is strung together with such a curious tact on the string of the journey across Sussex that the miscellaneous materials make one ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... mere mild despair. "'Loyalty' again is exquisite. The tact of men has a charm quite its own. And you're rather good," she continued, "as ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... ostensibly to kill a trout or two in some of your delicious streams; and indeed I may without presumption say en passant that few professors of the Rod excel me either in the niceties of my throw, the cool self-possession with which I take my fish, or the indomitable perseverance and perfect tact with which I drown and then land him with a single hair. I say ostensibly, for I have now no desire to conceal from you the ulterior objects that I had in view of either making a book to replenish my purse, or of establishing ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... embarrassed, was obliged to let Duvillard introduce him to the mistress of the house. He bowed in silence, whilst she, likewise silent, returned his bow with modest reserve, the tact appropriate to the occasion, such as no ingenue, even at the Comedie, was then capable of. And while the Baron accompanied the priest to the door, she returned to the salon with Duthil, who was scarcely screened by the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... been a widower for many years; and so, since his daughters were married and had households of their own, he was forced to preside over his menage at Washington without the feminine touch and tact so much needed at this American court. Perhaps it was this unhappy circumstance quite as much as his dislike for ceremonies and formalities that made Jefferson do away with the weekly levees of his predecessors and appoint only two days, the First of January ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Congress, a large number of the men in the Pennsylvania line mutinied, an event that threatened serious consequences to the American Army. This defection was suppressed peaceably, mainly through the excellent tact of General Wayne. He was idolized by his soldiers, who knew him as the soul of honor, and who placed implicit trust in his statements. Washington in a letter certifies to his "great share in preventing worse extremities" and thanks him for his exertions. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... my own anomalous position on her stoop, that I let my first impulse pass and concerned myself instead with the formation of those apologies I thought necessary to the occasion. But those apologies were never uttered. Mr. Gryce, with the infinite tact he displays in all serious emergencies, came to my rescue, and so distracted Miss Althorpe's attention that she failed to observe that she had interrupted a ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... were all introduced to him to-day. He was very gracious, Aberdeen said, but he did not choose his topics quite so well as the late King, who had much tact and grace, neither does the ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... reflected that the winter was coming, and that its long nights would give plenty of time for thought and plenty of opportunities for further advocacy. He wrote constantly to Colin and his wife, perhaps oftener to Mrs. Crawford than to the young laird, for she was a woman of great tact and many resources, and Tallisker ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... our English girls afterward to me, with tact and taste pre-eminently British, "She glad she is not English! Really, I'd almost as soon be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... only say, 'Oh, all right,' and yawn and change the subject—and what could I do then?" She answered herself, "Nothing," and thoughtfully added, "It will take a lot of tact." ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... wanting something like his Scriptural parallel. The history of the patriarch Jacob is interesting not less from the unselfish devotion which we are bound to ascribe to him, than from the deep worldly wisdom and polished Italian tact, gleaming under an air of Arcadian unaffectedness. The diplomatist and the shepherd are blended; a union not without warrant; the apostolic serpent and dove. A tanned ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... is the individual unit exalted. With all this, the simplicity of life is passing away. Our front doors are wide open as the trains go by. The caravan traverses our front yard. We speak to millions, millions speak to us; and we must cultivate the social tact, the gentleness, the adroitness, the firmness necessary to carry out our own designs without thwarting those of others. Time no longer flows on evenly. We must count our moments, so much for ourselves, so much for ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... in kindred. In point of talent there is no ground of comparison; yet it may be doubted whether they are not nearly as great in their own way. I have no notion of the place which the Speaker held in parliament before he was elected to the chair, and I know few situations which require more tact and management. In these qualifications the present Speaker is signally gifted. He brings a degree of good nature to the office, which no event, however untoward, can ruffle;—his calmness never ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... to reconcile the adversaries on the turf before any damage was done; he was the arbiter on all controverted points of literature, science, or woodcraft among the disputatious denizens of Clary's Grove, and his decisions were never appealed from. His native tact and humor were invaluable in his work as a peacemaker, and his enormous physical strength, which he always used with a magnanimity rare among giants, placed his off-hand decrees beyond the reach of contemptuous question. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... responsibilities, left no trace upon her beaming countenance. Her affections were numberless; her ignorance, as an observer easily discovered, was vast and profound; but the desire to please, the tact of a 'gentlewoman, and thorough goodness of heart, appeared in all her sayings and doings; she was never offensive, never wholly ridiculous. Small-talk flowed from her with astonishing volubility, tone and subject dictated by the characteristics of the person with whom ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... patiently, and act promptly where the dearest interests of their lives are concerned. Mrs. Vanstone—she has a right now, remember, to that name—Mrs. Vanstone had more than the average share of a woman's tenacity and a woman's tact; and she took all the needful precautions, in those early days, which her husband's less ready capacity had not the art to devise—precautions to which they were largely indebted for the preservation of their secret in ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... sprang to his feet and stood over Mrs. Groome with his charming deferential manner, but he had far too much tact to offer assistance as she rose heavily from ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... rising and gathering, even though Mont Blanc as we returned that evening showed rosy hues to its very summit in the clear heaven. I can hardly tell how, my mother's manner or something in it, made me sure both of the clouds and the thunder. It was full of grace, tact and spirit, to such a point of admiration. Yet I read in it, yes, and in that very grace and spirit, a certain state of the nervous powers which told of excitement at work, or a fund of determination gathering; the electric forces massing somewhere; and this luminous play ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... crowd, and the wide boulevards looked wider than ever. If you had cursed the sentiment of the day ever so, you would have had eyes for its picturesqueness, I think, so I wish you had been there to see. Louis Napoleon showed his usual tact and courage by riding on horseback quite alone, at least ten paces between himself and his nearest escort, which of course had a striking effect, taking the French on their weak side, and startling even Miss Cushman (who had been murmuring displeasure ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Police sleeps on no bed of roses. He must be as supple as willow, as rigid as steel, must possess the tact of a diplomatist, with the impartiality of ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... to the window and stood with his back towards her. She felt grateful to him for the action, and was a little surprised at the tact ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Smith had the tact to see his opportunity, and, moreover, it hurt him sharply, hurt him far more than it hurt Susannah, to hear her right to the privileges of the place called in question, to hear the opprobrious term "apostate" cast at her. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... him "Good-night," our chieftainess thanked him for his company in precisely the same terms she would have applied to Tompkins, who, by unflagging good humour and tact, would have made the day worth remembering to us all for ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... conciliatory reply as that which Serbia returned to Austria by Russia's instructions. It is in fact clear that as long ago as 1913 Austria had determined to crush Serbia, and that in 1913 that determination was only postponed; and postponed not, as we thought at the time, by the tact of Lord Grey at the Conference of London, but only by Italy's refusal to join in the adventure, as we now know from the revelations of San Giuliano and Salandra. Similarly, knowing as we do that England is no exception to the rule that no imperial nation ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... fit to be uncommonly discreet as to the cause of the young man's withdrawal, no great difficulty was experienced in finding another campus whereon Aunt Mary's pride and joy might freely disport himself. Mr. Stebbins threw himself into the affair with all the tact and ardor of an experienced legal mind and soon after Lucinda's return to her home allowed Arethusa to follow suit, the hopeful younger brother of the latter became a candidate for his second outfit of new sweaters and ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... Company, in itself parsimonious and somewhat petty, undoubtedly suffered much from the want of his presence; for during the time that he was in power he had restrained the excesses of his own people, and used no little tact towards the Portuguese. His rank, moreover, counted not a little in winning their esteem. The new authorities had not the influence over the soldiery that Prince Mauritz had enjoyed, and lacked not only experience ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... deepening grooves, Thrown out of which they lose their tact, And consciousness with effort moves From ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... la Comtesse," replied the lawyer, whose tact and wit failed him excepting in his chambers and in ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... with quick tact: "Mr. Blake is quite an eminent civil engineer, we understand. As a fellow engineer, you have met him, I dare ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... had to exhibit more Feminine Tact than I expected. Got entangled in swampy forest on Zambesi (I think), and Arabs declined to extricate us unless their pay was doubled! Also one of negresses—horrid woman!—has deserted me—come to place that she pretended to recognise as her native village, and said she ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... simple matter to construct in imagination an ideal teacher. Mix with immortal youth and abounding health, a maximal degree of knowledge and a maximal degree of experience, add perfect tact, the spirit of true service, the most perfect patience, and the most steadfast persistence; place in the crucible of some good normal school; stir in twenty weeks of standard psychology, ten weeks ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... quality, tact or spite, according as it is used, which teaches women to find out, and either avoid or wound one another's sore places, which made the little girl so often refer to "poor mamma?" Or had she been ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the fact, That selfsame truant known as "Cadet Grey" Was the young hero of our moral tract, Shorn of his twofold names on entrance-day. "Winthrop" and "Adams" dropped in that one act Of martial curtness, and the roll-call thinned Of his ancestors, he with youthful tact Indulgence claimed, since Winthrop no more sinned, Nor sainted Adams winced when he, plain ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... negotiation was broken off. The regent at last fell back on Liverpool, a capable and conciliatory minister, who adopted Perceval's colleagues, and a spell of tory administration set in which remained unbroken for no less than fifteen years. Had more tact been shown on all sides, had the whigs been less peremptory in their demands, and had the trivial household question never arisen, the course of the war, if not of European history, might, whether for good or ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... not a little tact and knowledge of the young lord's disposition in this mode of treating him. Sir Mulberry clearly saw that if his dominion were to last, it must be established now. He knew that the moment he became violent, the young man would become violent too. He had, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... during our ride, and our opinion of his Hellenic majesty's tact and taste did not become more favourable, when it was discovered that his proceedings had utterly ruined the immense ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... droll, Jan decidedly was so. Some said Jan was a fool, some said he was a bear. Lady Verner did not accord him any great amount of favour herself. She had tried to make Jan what she called a gentleman, to beat into him suavity, gracefulness, tact, gloss of speech and bearing, something between a Lord Chesterfield and a Sir Roger de Coverley; and she had been obliged lo give it up as a hopeless job. Jan was utterly irreclaimable: Nature had made him plain and straightforward, and so he remained. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... senses deceptive, but numerous usages in our language indicate that people who have five senses find it difficult to keep their functions distinct. I understand that we hear views, see tones, taste music. I am told that voices have colour. Tact, which I have supposed to be a matter of nice perception, turns out to be a matter of taste. Judging from the large use of the word, taste appears to be the most important of all the senses. Taste governs the great and small conventions of life. Certainly the language of the senses ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... in tact and sympathy in handling men, cross-grained, harsh, and obstinate, is probably true. His language was often lurid, he lavished foul epithets upon his crew, and he was not reluctant to follow terms of abuse by vigorous chastisement. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Timothy Bigelow, Esq., F.S. Harding, Charles West, John Tobias, S.C. Knight, and other well-known temperance workers in this city. Mr. Benson is a reformed man, and, speaking as he did from a terrible experience, he made an excellent impression, and proved himself an orator of tact, talent and ability. A number of his passages were marked with true eloquence and pathos, and for an hour and a quarter he held the closest attention of his large audience in a manner that could only be done by those who are earnest in the cause, and appeal ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... mere question of management. High-spirited children want tact in dealing with them, that is all. You never trouble to exercise any tact whatever." Her eyes dwelt fondly on her high-spirited son, whose red head was bent attentively over Africa while he traced a mighty mountain ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... weapons which nature has bestowed upon us. He boasted no other education than that which a lad picks up at the primary school; but, almost illiterate as he was, he possessed all the refinement, the innate culture, the unconscious delicacy and tact, the kindliness of speech and feeling and the beautiful heart of that comely race whose foremost sons seem to be purified and spiritualized from their first childish steps by the most radiant sunshine in the world. One would say ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... him with all my heart. She must forget, though, that they are boy and girl, and only remember that they are comrades. Flirting never helps things. But a girl has more patience than a boy, as a rule, and more tact. Where a boy fights, she waits till the time comes for her to put in a word that tells. Moreover, she is willing to stand by her friends through thick and thin, if she has any conscience at all, ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... one kind of prudence, and that the prudence of Mrs Grove was of another and higher kind, than a simple youth could be supposed to comprehend, his enlightenment might not yet have been accomplished. If it had been averred that mamma's faith, in her daughter's tact and conversational powers was not sufficient to permit her to allow them to be too severely tried, he might have paused to recall her little airs and gestures, and to weigh the airy nothings from those pretty lips, and he could not but have acknowledged that mamma's faithlessness ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... regarding the obligation of reticence in the discussion of family matters. She feared she had reckoned insufficiently with all this in her eagerness, forgetting subtle diplomacies. Her approach had lacked tact and finesse. In dealing with an adversary of coarser fibre her attack would have succeeded to admiration. But this man was refined and sensitive to a fault, easily disgusted, narrowly critical ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... find her father. Her eagerness to see him outflew her steps. This was not a subject she could discuss with Matapi-Koma. The Cree woman would not understand what a tremendous difference it made if she could prove her blood was wholly of the superior race. Nor could Jessie with tact raise such a point. It involved not only the standing of Matapi-Koma herself, ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... piece of tact the author of the letter deserves great credit; for whereas his College collectively, when forming their opinion on the questions proposed to them by the Council, seemed to throw all India records overboard,—he, in his individual capacity, as author of the letter, ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... returned to the room (her paint and rouge washed off, and her gay clothes replaced by a simple woollen jacket over a plain underskirt), and she began to beat up an egg, to boil some milk, to pour out a dose of medicine, and to do, with all a good woman's tact, a good woman's tenderness, the little services of which ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... good deal to do to keep the pony up and going, Burnaby undertook to follow up this glimmering of returning sense on the part of the old gentleman, and with much patience and tact he succeeded in getting him so far round that we ascertained we were driving in the direction of "Blackmore." Further than this we could not get, any pressure in the direction of learning whether there was a railway station at the town or village, or whatever it might ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... and gazing with bright interest upon the varied spectacle of the street. The occasion was almost ideal. I took the other arm-chair in the semicircle of the window. I saw at once by his careless demeanour that his illness had taught him nothing, and I determined with all my notorious tact and persuasiveness to point ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... matters, both of taste and opinion, had been discussed considerably within the space of half an hour, but without the embellishment of many observations from himself; he being evidently less bent upon communicating his own thoughts and predilections, than on discovering mine. He had not the tact, or the art, to effect such a purpose by skilfully drawing out my sentiments or ideas through the real or apparent statement of his own, or leading the conversation by imperceptible gradations to such topics as he wished to advert to: ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... get any 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
... satellites around the luminaries of a solar system. When Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1453, Italy felt the need of suppressing her old jealousies, and Nicholas V. induced the four great powers to sign with him a treaty of peace and amity. The political tact and sagacity of Lorenzo de' Medici enabled him to develop and substantiate the principle of balance then introduced into Italian politics; nor was there any apparent reason why the equilibrium so hardly won, so skillfully maintained, should not have subsisted ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... former lover, and who had more than once, when Norbert was unable to leave Champdoce, been intrusted with a letter or a message for her. And how would Montlouis behave under the circumstances? Would he possess the necessary tact and coolness to carry him through so difficult a position? What would be the end of this cruel concatenation of circumstances? Would Diana be able to endure the compromising witness of her youthful error? She would eagerly seek out some pretext ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... snapping his fingers at problems and mysteries. A spark of curiosity pricked him still, it is true, concerning the origin of certain undeniably queer aural phenomena. He meant to satisfy that curiosity presently; but the subject must be approached with tact. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... skill and tact that not one in a million possesses. I am deeply grateful." We were at the foot of the stone stairs. I had my hand on the ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... of the play Lord Beatty, who is urbanity itself, offered to scrap Portsmouth Dockyard, and asked if anybody present would like Canada. President Harding replied with his customary tact that if England wanted the Philippines, he would think it what he would term a residuum of normalcy to give them away. There is no telling what might have happened had not Mr. Briand interposed to say that ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... 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
... sagacity, that seems weighted with rich results of village experience. A great deal of native sense; no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly,—at least, endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft, and would impel him, I think, to take an antagonist in flank, rather than to make a bull-run at him right in front. But, on the whole, I liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... sculpture, if we except the exquisite work in babies and angels just out of the nursery of the Robbias, which is a real achievement. But how achieved? This art is great just by the things which Antiquity did not. And what are those things? Shall we say that it is sentiment? But all fine art has tact, antique art most certainly; and as to pathos, why, any quiet figure of a dead man or woman, however rudely carved, has pathos; nay, there is pathos in the poor puling hysterical art which makes angels draw the curtains of fine ladies' bedchambers, and fine ladies, in hoop or limp ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... lady, naturally enough, mistook my confusion for shyness. With perfect tact and kindness she entered into conversation with me. In another minute I was walking side by side with the woman who had sternly repudiated me as a member of her family; feeling, I own, terribly discomposed, and not knowing in the least whether I ought or ought not to assume the responsibility, ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... that his cause was lost. He had gone rather white about the lips as he listened to Lesley's protest. Of course, he had offended her by his abominable want of tact, he told himself—his intrusive proffer of unneeded sympathy and help. But it was not in his nature to acknowledge himself beaten, and to take his leave without a word. His ardor ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the warmest affection and admiration for Sara, but her manner even of evidencing her affection was commonly so entirely without tact, as rather to displease than please the object of it. The consciousness of this fact embittered much of Petrea's life; but it conducted her by degrees to a love in which tact and address are of no consequence, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... stories about the Queen of England and my Lord of Leicester!" said Otheman, with infinite tact. "No person is exempted from the tongues of evil, speakers; but virtuous and godly men do put all such foolish matter under their feet. Then there is the Countess of Hoeurs, how much evil talk does ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his card on the table, rising to go, and timing his departure with that tact and grace which is only ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... It was the beginning of the last twenty years of Pisa's life as an independent city. She now stood between Visconti in the north and Florence close at hand. Florence was her friend against Visconti for her own sake: she meant to have Pisa herself. Gambacorti did his best. With infinite tact he kept friends with both cities. Under him Pisa seemed to regain something of her old confidence and prosperity. A man of fine courage, simplicity, and passing honest, he was incapable of suspecting a tried friend whom he had benefited. ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... The best man is usually a bachelor, but may be a married man or a widower, and is selected by the groom. He fills an important position, requiring tact, administrative ability, and capacity to handle details. He acts as the groom's representative, confidential advisor, and ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... the door of their room behind her. "Jerry has gone, and isn't coming back any more. And for goodness' sake, don't keep asking questions about it. Just eat your breakfast as usual, and have a little tact." ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... account every circumstance regarding the actions of the 6th and 12th July,—the severity of the former, the intermediate exertions, the professional skill, the daring and the tact displayed in the latter, and the complete discomfiture of the enemy's well-arranged plans for the destruction of our commerce at Lisbon and the subsequent relief of their army in Egypt,—this victory was equal to, if not greater ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... act. There was not a blow struck, not a shot fired; and the first impulse of nearly every person in the country, whether in principle opposed to annexation or not, was to congratulate Sir Theophilus Shepstone on the skill, tact, and good fortune with which he had put an end to the excessive anxiety, the mental strain, the fears, hopes, and expectations by which the whole country was paralyzed. Whether the annexation be now held to be right ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... early sketches there is a plot amongst the humorous dramatis personae, to avenge themselves on a little boy for the lack of tact whereby his parents have brought him with them to a party on the river. The principal humorist frightens the child into convulsions. The incident is the success of the day, and is obviously intended to have some kind of reflex action in amusing the reader. In Dickens's maturer books the ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... clipped. How do you like the outlook, old bear? Do you lie awake at night and study how to save your scheme for the Emperor's marriage? All your grumpy old life you've despised women; but now you're beginning at last to find out that powerful as you are, there are some things a woman with tact and money, nice houses and a good-natured husband can do, which the highest statesman in the land can't undo. How soon shall I make you admit that, ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... Edition. 'In elegance, delicacy, and tact it ranks with the best of his novels, while in the wide range of its portraiture and the subtlety of its analysis it surpasses all his ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... the direct, man-like wisdom of all this, and was quick to appreciate his delicate tact in effacing the question of the reward without even referring to it. But his stoicism was ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... intellect—albeit not such a sinner against time and place as to be an "educated woman"—charms that, even in a plainer person, would have brought down the half of New Orleans upon one knee, with both hands on the left side. She had the whole city at her feet, and, with the fine tact which was the perfection of her character, kept it there contented. Madame was, in short, one of the kind that gracefully wrest from society the prerogative of doing as they please, and had gone even to such extravagant lengths as driving out in the Americain faubourg, learning the English ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... 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 Magniagus of Milan in 1480, and opened the ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... of his warm friends, and the two understood each other well. Often when they were together in company, the painter's tact and courtesy smoothed over some breach of etiquette on the part of his companion. At Reynolds's suggestion, the two founded together a small club of congenial spirits, called ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... forbearing tone, "I wish you would not remind me so often of your prejudice against Senator Goodrich. It is unworthy of you. But for my tact—pardon my frankness—your prejudice would have driven him away, and with him a ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... to possess the tact and the ability necessary to hold together these dissolving elements of a country never yet thoroughly united; and even he was long doubted and distrusted by many good men. Strange as it may seem, Douglas had been, until his ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... delivered by the Countess of Dundonald, who at this time, as at all others, laboured with rare energy and tact to lighten her husband's heavy load of suffering and to augment his scanty store of joy. "Lady Dundonald," he wrote on the 6th of February, "has had a long talk with Lord Grey on the subject of my affair, and it clearly appears that there ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... be performed in the face of the world. A Prime Minister, or a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or a Secretary of State must explain his policy and defend his actions in Parliament, and the discriminating tact of a critical assemblyabounding in experience, and guided by traditionwill soon discover what he is. But the Governor of the Bank would only perform quiet functions, which look like routine, though they are not, m which ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... reception given to the Cabinet by Mrs. Atterbury that the rumor of this accredited function came to Jack's ears. "All Richmond" was among the guests. Olympia, in spite of her abhorrence of the cause, couldn't resist a glow of sympathetic admiration of the women who, in dress, in speech, in tact, in all the artifices which make feminine diplomacy so potent an agency in statecraft, bent every faculty to inspire confidence in the new Administration. Mrs. Davis herself was not the least of the factors that made the President's policy the creed of the land. There ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... much of politics, of art, and letters,—the most accomplished gentleman among all the distinguished people that he met; not as yet a man of power, but a man of influence, sending home to Count Stadion, minister of foreign affairs, reports and letters of great ability, displaying a sagacity and tact marvellous for a man ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... 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 to South ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... occasionally upon members of the class to come forward and give the experiment in the place of the teacher, and to encourage home work relating to experiments. This latter is often spontaneous on the part of older pupils, and can be brought about with the smaller ones by the use of a little tact; many of the toys of the present day have some scientific principle at bottom; let the teacher find out what toys his young pupils have, and encourage them to use them in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... would have selected an opportunity when no other man was present. It was an awkward situation, this being shut up alone in a husbandless woman's house with an unknown intruder. It seemed to be an occasion for tact rather than the possible ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... the summit of the St. Bernard, all at once the militia of the Ceutrones appeared partly in the rear of the army, partly on the crests of the rocks enclosing the pass on the right and left, in the hope of cutting off the train and baggage. But Hannibal, whose unerring tact had seen in all those advances made by the Ceutrones nothing but the design of procuring at once immunity for their territory and a rich spoil, had in expectation of such an attack sent forward ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Madame Wachner did not show her usual tact; she began discussing the two travellers who were now well started, no doubt, on their way to Switzerland, and she expressed contemptuous surprise that the Comte ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... to a friend, "on respect for learned men. I say, Amen! But at the same time, don't forget that largeness of mind, depth of thought, appreciation of the lofty, experience of the world, delicacy of manner, tact and energy in action, love of truth, honesty, and amiability—that all these may be wanting in a man who may yet be ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... to depend on, he could not indulge a dream of marrying. From what I afterwards learned, I was right in this conjecture. Poor fellow! he had loved her well and deeply, but he had never told his love. She might have suspected his attachment, but with the tact and delicacy of a right-minded woman, she did not allow him to discover that she did so, but endeavoured, by the frank kindness of her words and manner, to take away the bitterness from the wound she was inflicting. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... kill the horses and mules, and leave us to every robber among the hills." Doubtless the Maalem prophesied worse things than this, but I have no Arabic worth mention, and Salam, who acts as interpreter, possesses a very fair amount of tact. I own to a vulgar curiosity that urges me to see a djin if I can, so, after this warning, Salam and I go cantering every late afternoon when the Enemy, as some Moors call the sun, is moving down towards the west, and the air gets its ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding never forgets that amour-propre is universal. When ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the campaign with admirable tact: making cautious approaches, and content, for three days, with ogling the nymph for about five minutes after every meal. On the fourth day, he asked her a question; on the fifth, she dropped a nut of ointment, and he picked it up and gave ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... new political party, consisting almost wholly of Southern men, sprung into being. What added to its importance was, that, though ridiculously small in respect of the numbers who composed it, the members possessed great parliamentary eloquence and tact, and had previously been regarded as among the firmest friends of the administration. Its numbers were indeed so small both in Congress and out of it, as to exercise no weight in the call of the ayes and noes, or at the polls; but its members ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... treated with an artistic finish that shows perfect mastery of her craft, without detracting from the freshness and flow of her inspiration. While sounding no absolutely new note in the world, she yet makes us aware of a talent of unusual distinction, and a highly endowed nature,—a sort of tact of sentiment and expression, an instinct of the true and beautiful, and that quick intuition which is like second-sight in its sensitiveness to apprehend and respond to external stimulus. But it is not the purely imaginative poems in this volume ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... measure that his health was undermined, his artistry grew keener, becoming fastidious, exquisite, precious, delicate, irritable toward the banal, and most sensitive in matters of tact and taste. When he first came forward, there was much noise of approval and joy among those concerned, for what he had produced was a thing full of valuable work, of humor, and of acquaintance with suffering. And his name, the same name that his teachers had once used to reprove him, the same ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... cousin from interested motives. Notwithstanding her defects of temper, no one denies that she was a woman qualified by nature to rouse the passion of man. A wit and beauty, she was mistress of the arts which heighten the powers of feminine tact and loveliness. The daughter of Sir Thomas Cecil, the grandchild of Lord Burleigh, she was Francis Bacon's near relation; and though the Cecils were not inclined to help him to fortune, he was nevertheless ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... many little circumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly minute that nobody else could make anything out of them even now; and had, it seemed from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact and most consummate generalship. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... November, 1812, that she was 'the most stylish woman in the drawing-room that session, and that she dressed with more splendor than any other of the noblesse;' and again the same year compared her with the wife of the President, whose courtly manners and consummate tact and grace are a tradition of the republican court. "Tell your good lady," mother Irving wrote to James Renwick, "that Mrs. Madison has been much indisposed, and at last Wednesday's evening drawing-room ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... of a field-secretary or organizer is a delicate one, we fully understand. But we are firmly convinced that priests can be found, who, with tact, intelligence and enthusiasm for the great Cause of Missions, and backed with the authority and sympathy of the Ordinary, are bound to make this work a success. There is a wave of the missionary spirit passing over the Church of God. The clergy and the people are eager ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... possibilities. President Coxe was alive to them also, and he has rebuilt and rejuvenated the Tuna Club on the splendid standard set by its founder, Dr. Charles Frederick Holder, and with infinite patience and tact and labor, and love of fine angling and good fellowship, he has put down that small but mighty clique who threatened the ruin of sport at fair Avalon. This has not been public news, but it ought to be and shall ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... bull is even yet undefined; which is most extraordinary, considering that Miss Edgeworth has applied all her tact and illustrative power to furnish the matter for such a definition, and Coleridge all his philosophic subtlety (but in this instance, I think, with a most infelicitous result) to furnish its form. But both have been too fastidious in their admission of bulls. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... things"? A little plumbing—or its equivalent in a land where no plumbing is; a little bossing of the carpenter, the mason, the builder; a great deal of "high finance" in raising one dollar to the purchasing power of two; a deal of administration with need for endless tact; the teaching of subjects known and unknown,—largely the latter; a vast amount of mothering and a proportionate return in the love of children; days bristling with problems, and nights when one sinks into bed too tired to think ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... it in all its purity. There is no first quality case that has not its inferiorities, and a mistaken interest often causes damaged beans to be put in, which should have been rejected. The roasting of the cocoa is also a delicate operation, and requires a tact very like inspiration. Some have the faculty naturally, and ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... unwise to deprive himself and his administration of so necessary a supporter, he offered the post to John Jay, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The quality, deemed most desirable, which it was feared Jay might lack, was audacity. But he had discretion, tact, and urbanity in full share, besides that indefinable something which went with his being a ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... knows how to approach people, and possesses the art of leading them, is the one who will invariably have the largest following and will possess the greatest amount of influence over his fellows. The fact cannot be disputed that men of great brilliancy of intellect, without tact, have been distanced by others far less talented, who possessed the knack of getting near to the masses with the object in view to lead and control them. A military commander who knows how to muster and marshal his men so as to make them most effective ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... regimental, during the earlier afternoon, but now they were off for stables. There had been an influx of army wives and daughters, to wish Bob Lanier many happy returns, for this was his birthday. Shrewd woman, with all her gentle kindliness and tact, was Mrs. Stannard. She had sent word to all her cronies of the interesting event and suggested a call. More significance, therefore, would be attached to a neglect to an acceptance of the hint. Perhaps this is how it happened that just ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... Ambulance Corps are under the immediate direction of a committee of prominent Americans, the executive head of which is Dr. Winchester Dubouchet, who bears the title of Surgeon-in-chief. He is a man possessing the rare combination of tact and efficiency. He is thoroughly conversant with the technique of his profession and has in previous wars had large experience with field ambulance service. His ability and skill have proved as important in the organization and running of these institutions as were ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... curtain of her bonnet had concealed the sloping curves of her shoulders—altogether she was attractive enough, despite the flare of her yellow dress, and especially attractive to the untutored eyes of Jacob Brice. He relented suddenly, and lost all the advantages of his tact and diplomacy. ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... 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 ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... must be great caution in all attempts at school teaching that directly touches human sexual life. It would be a dangerous experiment to introduce sex-instruction into all schools by sudden legislation. There must be specially trained teachers of selected personality and tact. No existing high school has enough such teachers, and in the grammar schools where the pupils are at the age when proper instruction would influence them most, the problem of general class instruction is absolutely unsolved. Only here and there in schools ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... fits. All the organ-grinder's fault! A most lucky thing these gentlemen caught it when they did. I hope you aren't badly mauled, Sir Christopher?" Shaken as I was (I wanted to get away and laugh) I could not but admire the scoundrel's consummate tact in leading his second highest trump. An ass would have introduced Lord Lundie and they ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... soon be ready to bake; the dough was still rising behind the stove. There might be other things to be attended to. Not more than an hour would elapse before she was ready to go. She remarked that men were a very helpless lot whenever they were ill, and became grumpy and took feminine tact to manage. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... recruit, whose pale blue silk underclothing brought a slight twinkle to the eye of the jolly medecin major. Max wished that it had occurred to him to buy something cheaper and less noticeable. But it was too late to think of that now. At all events, he was grateful for the tact and consideration which had ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... pirates who resided in that favourite stronghold. At one time he joined Misson, the originator of "piracy-without-tears" at his garden city of Libertatia. A quarrel arose between Misson's French followers and Tew's English pirates. A duel was arranged between the two leaders, but by the tact of another pirate—an unfrocked Italian priest—all was settled amicably, Tew being appointed Admiral and the diplomatic ex-priest suitably chosen as Secretary of State to the little republic. Such a reputation for kindness had Tew that ships ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... a large part of the excitability that attends it with us. The wealth and social position of the family and the ingenious tact of mammas, as a rule, win the husbands, and the daughter needs only to be in sight. It is not at all rare to go to an evening party and know no one but the host and hostess, and as introductions are rarely given, one has only to look ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... the family would enable Coelebs to mark these little episodes more closely, judging for himself the temper and tact of the idol of his fancy; while, at the same time, he might discover many admirable little traits of kindness and charity and grace, which can only be seen to advantage when displayed ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... element. He might be called upon to act as judge in a horse-race, or to make a speech upon the Constitution! He could do both. As a laughing peacemaker between two quarrelsome patriots he had no equal; and as contestant in an impromptu match at quoit-throwing, or lifting heavy weights, his native tact and strong arm served him equally well. Candidates also visited farms and outlying settlements, where they were sometimes unexpectedly called upon to show their mettle and muscle in more useful labor. ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... local grievances.] Severity and want of tact on the part of the Government and their instruments, as well as bigoted dissensions have caused many revolts of the natives; yet none, it is true, of any great danger to the Spanish rule. The discontent has always been confined to a single district, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... antagonize Oka Sayye. Don't be too precipitate about what you're trying to do. Try to make it appear that you're developing ideas for the interest and edification of the whole class. Don't incur his personal enmity. Use tact." ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... As for his tact and prudence, I will merely say, that at a time when scarcely a man from the Free States was able to reach Kansas by any direct route, at least without having his arms taken from him, he, carrying what imperfect guns and other weapons he could collect, openly and slowly ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... stern and stark As Brontes self, was not his dower; Not his to steer a storm-tost bark Through waves that whelm, and clouds that lower. Temper unstirred, unerring tact, Were his. He could not "wave the banner," But he could lend to steely act The softly silken charm ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... creatures, they say, are not valued at all, Except when the herd give a Bachelor's ball. Then drest in their best, In their gold broidered vest, It is known as a fact, That they act with much tact, And they lisp out 'How do?' And they coo and they woo, And they smile, for a while, Their fair guests to beguile; Condescending and bending, For fear of offending, Though inert, And they spy, They exert, ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... 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 and most ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... the tsardom culminating in dangerous rebellions at Pskov and Great Novgorod, with which the government was so unable to cope that they surrendered, practically granting the malcontents their own terms. One man only had displayed equal tact and courage at Great Novgorod, the metropolitan Nikon (q.v.), who in consequence became in 1651 the tsar's chief minister. In 1653 the weakness and disorder of Poland, which had just emerged, bleeding at every pore, from the savage Cossack war, encouraged ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
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