154
MIXED DRINKS.
frugality, politeness, gentleness, modesty, affibility, and
last in mention, but first in importance.
Tact.
Talent is a very fine thing, but tact is much better.
It is almost indispensable. It is not the undiscovered
sixth sense, which philosophers have been searching
for, but it is really the life of all the five senses. It is
the open eye, the quick ear, the discriminating taste,
the keen smell, the sensitive touch,the peculiar skill or
faculty, the nice perception,the ready power of appre
ciating and doing the right thing at the right time and
iu the right place, as required by circumstances. It is
the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all
obstacles, and is alike useful in all places.
The Tin Trumpet, published in London the latter
part of 1700,says substantially that "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 practical pur
poses of life tact carries it against talent ten to one.
At the bar talent receives compliments,but tact gets
clients and fees. * * * Talent makes the world
wonder that it gets on no faster; tact excites astonish
ment that it gets on so fast. The secret is that it has