still another instance: One lady was introduced to another lady who was
the wife of a gentleman much older than herself. After catching the name
the lady said: "Are you the wife of old Mr. C----?" Of course everybody
around who had any sensibility was pained and embarrassed by such a
blunt, brusque question. Yet the lady who displayed this want of tact
was a college graduate and the principal teacher in an important school.

Now, no rule or rules will ever prevent anyone from doing and saying
things which show lack of tact. Nothing will do it but the cultivation
of a spirit of sympathy which will enable one to realize how other
people feel when their opinions and peculiarities or circumstances are
so bluntly antagonized or alluded to. I know an excellent and
high-minded lady, of superior intellectual culture, who often complains
that she has few friends. She says that she longs for the affection and
esteem of her friends, yet, as she expresses it, she has "no personal
magnetism." I was once present in a literary society of which this lady,
Mrs. A., was a member. Another member, Mrs. B., made a statement about a
matter under discussion in the society, when Mrs. A. arose and said,
bluntly: "That is not true." Everybody was astonished, and listened
almost indignantly while Mrs. A. went on to show that Mrs. B. had simply
been misinformed and was mistaken. It would have been entirely easy and
proper for Mrs. A. to ask permission to correct a misapprehension on the
part of Mrs. B., and she could have done it in such a way as would have
wounded nobody's feelings. Mrs. A., while she complains that she has few
friends, frequently asserts that she believes in saying just what she
thinks. This is all well enough, but she says it with so little tact as
to constantly wound the feelings and antagonize the opinions of everyone
around her.

Tact is as important in manners as in speech. The word is closely allied