Diplomacy alone cannot take the place of tact, for it comes only from the head; tact is from the heart. The prominent people to whom I refer did not lack great qualities of head; they would have failed without them, but these alone would have been insufficient without the softer sense—“The inmost one,” as Hawthorne named it; the quality to which Oliver Wendell Holmes referred when he said—“I am getting in by the side door.” Diplomacy, as distinguished from tact, is something with a string to it: or playing for a place; tact is a subtle, timely touch from the heart.
A few years ago I returned from Europe on the steamer with Mr. James G. Blaine. Every one on board wanted to talk with him and learn of things which taste and prudence forbade his mentioning. Yet Mr. Blaine was so tactful throughout this ordeal, that no one suffered a rebuff and every one became his friend. He went further by discovering the good but shrinking people who in a great ship became isolated, and bringing them into the general company and conversation. Yet all the while he was a model to many other married men on board by his constant and knightly courtesy to his own wife.
I have referred elsewhere to the tact of King Edward VII of Great Britain, the most popular sovereign in Europe. This quality is not restricted to public purposes; his acquaintances know that it is untiringly exercised for the benefit of Queen Alexandra, of whose deafness he is never unmindful. Often, when I had the honor to entertain the royal family and their friends, it was my duty to face the King (then Prince of Wales). Sometimes this placed me—embarrassingly too, with my back to the greater part of the audience. But the Prince was regardless of custom and his own royal prerogative, when his consort’s enjoyment was endangered; on one occasion when he saw that the Princess was not hearing me distinctly, he said softly to me, “Mr. Wilder, kindly turn your face toward the Princess!”
And Her Royal Highness is as tactful as he. The audience at a special entertainment given the Shah of Persia in London included the most distinguished and wealthy people in the city. I was among those engaged to entertain the Shah, beside whom sat the Princess (now Queen Alexandra). As His Persian Majesty was ignorant of the English language it was not strange that he held his programme upside down. This might have occasioned a laugh and caused the Shah some mortification had not the Princess deftly turned her own programme upside down and kept it so during the performance.
“The Shah held His Program Upside Down.”
One of the “nerviest” illustrations of tact is to the credit of Henry Ward Beecher. After the war, he made a lecture tour of the South and appeared at Mozart Hall, Richmond, with an address entitled, “The North and The South.” He was rather doubtful as to the reception he would have but he knew what he wanted and was determined to get it. No applause welcomed him as he appeared on the platform, but a few hisses were heard in the gallery. In the better rows of seats were some grim ex-Confederates—General Fitzhugh Lee, General Rosser, ex-Governor Smith, Governor Cameron and others. Beecher fixed his eye directly on Lee and said—(I quote a newspaper report of the incident):
“I have seen pictures of General Fitzhugh Lee, sir, and I assume you are the man. Am I right?”
The General, slightly taken back by this direct address, nodded stiffly, while the audience bent forward, breathless with curiosity as to what was going to follow.