something to which they were habituated.  This is one instance of lack of tact, but here is another of different character:  A company of educated people sat down at table together, and the conversation happened to turn on the question of the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays.  One lady, who was a recent college graduate and supposed to be possessed of an unusual degree of culture, said in a most positive manner:  “I think the advocates of the theory that some one other than Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him, simply show their ignorance and shallowness.”  An uncomfortable pause fell upon, the company, for two of the best informed people present were entirely convinced that some one other than Shakespeare wrote the plays.  It was simply lack of tact that betrayed this lady into a positiveness and obtrusiveness of statement that made others uncomfortable and aroused their antagonism.  Here is 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.