• Author: B-6594
• Editor: B-6591
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 2
• Page Number:
• Date: 9 17 1913
• Tags:
• advice

TALENT AND TACT Talent is something, but tact is everything Talent is serious, sober, grave, and respectable: tact is all that and more too. It is not a sixth sense, but is the life of all five. It is the open eye, the quick ear, the judging taste the keen smell, and the lively touch; it is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles. It is useful in all places, and at all times; it is useful in solitude, for it shows a man his way into the world; it is useful in society, for it shows him his way through the world. Talent is power, tact is skill: talent is weight, tact is momentum: talent knows what to do, tact knows how to do it; talent makes a man respectable, tact will make him respected ; talent is wealth, tact is ready money. For all the practical purposes of life, tact carries it against talent, ten to one. Tact has a knack of slipping into place with a sweet silence and glibness of movement. It seems to know everything without learning anything. It has all the air of commonplace, and all the force and power of genius. Our French cousins call the unerring perception which enables us to say without fail the right thing in the right place, the sixth sense. Some of us are born with it, It is a natural trait, indeed, in the American character as it is rare in that of some other people It can be gained by cultivation of a kindly spirit, and the habit of placing ourselves momentarily in each man's place before we speak to him. B 6594