Not even the just criticism of these arts is attainable without certain
natural gifts; but a great deal of practice in good galleries and at
good concerts, and years spent among artists, will do much to make even
moderately-endowed people sound judges of excellence.

Tact, which is the sure and quick judgment of what is suitable and
agreeable in society, is likewise one of those delicate and subtle
qualities or a combination of qualities which is not very easily
defined, and therefore not teachable by fixed precepts. Some people
attain it through sympathy; others through natural intelligence; others
through a calm temper; others again by observing closely the mistakes of
their neighbors. As its name implies, it is a sensitive touch in social
matters, which feels small changes of temperature, and so guesses at
changes of temper; which sees the passing cloud on the expression of one
face, or the eagerness of another that desires to bring out something
personal for others to enjoy. This quality of tact is of course
applicable far beyond mere actual conversation. In nothing is it more
useful than in preparing the right conditions for a pleasant society, in
choosing the people who will be in mutual sympathy, in thinking over
pleasant subjects of talk and suggesting them, in seeing that all
disturbing conditions are kept out, and that the members who are to
converse should be all without those small inconveniences which damage
society so vastly out of proportion to their intrinsic importance.

--_Mahaffy._

* * * * *

In the course of our life we have heard much of what was reputed to be
the select conversation of the day, and we have heard many of those who