Tact.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1037, 15 January 1892, Page 4

Tact.

We seC now and again an advertisement in the daily papers requesting the services of a person with ‘tact.’ This quality, ‘ tact,’ has evidently a marketable value. It is a quality sought after, but, alas, not always found. Tact is a great acquisition in a person. I remember many years ago in my far-off home, I asked a newly arrived servant girl to make some melted butter sauce, which was required for an old-fashioned pudding. The girl brought it to table carefully mixed with finely chopped parsley. She lacked tact. The other day I was enquiring after the health of her firstborn from a mother. The child was not exactly ill, she said, but it was dwindling away to nothing. It seemed to have no life or spirits. ‘ What do vou feed it upon.’ ‘ Cornflour’, was the reply. There is no strengthening properties in cornflour, it is merely starch, and a starch diet will not keep life for any length of time in a young child, lhe mother had been told this information before, but sHe lacked tact, and the child had a near escape of its life. A voung woman of really what should be a sensible age, just before the holidays telegraphed to a friend in town that she was coming to spend a weeks holiday with her. No date was mentioned and the voung woman, who had been for some little time travelling about from one place to another, had put no address on the telegram. Her friend m town had sevei al children ill with influenza, and every bed in the house was fully occupied, and the visitor arrived an unwelcome guest, all foi the want of tact. , _ . . A friend of mine had, m her spaie moments, unknown to her husband, _ embroidered, very handsomely, a_ pair of slippers, which she intended havin ? ma e up and presented to him on bis birthday as a surprise. As she was taking them to the shoemakers she met an acquaintance who insisted upon going into the shop with her, and of course learned her errand. My friend could do no less than show her the intended slippers and ask her opinion, telling her that they were a surprise gift to her husband. The next afternoon—a Sunday—this identical lady paid a visit to my friend, and right before the good man of the house began discussing the very slippers in question, which were to be a secret from the husband till the Tuesday. A lamentable want of tact. What we term ‘ tact’ is common sense. People seem too lazy at times to exercise their brains, or else they go y°°l ing. They ‘forget,’ that is the only excuse they give for their want of tact. This forgetfulness is only so rnuch laziness. They will not go to the trouble to think - ' Dora.