"Measure the width of this stream instantly."—"Sire, be reasonable!"—"Ascertain at once the width of this river, or you shall be deposed."
The engineer drew the cap-piece of his helmet down until the edge seemed just in line between his eye and the opposite bank; then, holding himself carefully erect, he turned on his heel and noticed where the edge seemed to touch the bank on which he stood, which was on the same level as the other. He paced the distance to the point last noted, and said: "This is the approximate width of the stream." He was promoted.
"Mr. Webster," said the mayor of a Western city, when it was learned that the great statesman, although weary with travel, would be delayed for an hour by a failure to make close connections, "allow me to introduce you to Mr. James, one of our most distinguished citizens." "How do you do, Mr. James?" asked Webster mechanically, as he glanced at a thousand people waiting to take his hand. "The truth is, Mr. Webster," replied Mr. James in a most lugubrious tone, "I am not very well." "I hope nothing serious is the matter," thundered the godlike Daniel, in a tone of anxious concern. "Well, I don't know that, Mr. Webster. I think it's rheumatiz, but my wife——" "Mr. Webster, this is Mr. Smith," broke in the mayor, leaving poor Mr. James to enjoy his bad health in the pitiless solitude of a crowd. His total want of tact had made him ridiculous.
"Address yourself to the jury, sir," said a judge to a witness who insisted upon imparting his testimony in a confidential tone to the court direct. The man did not understand and continued as before. "Speak to the jury, sir, the men sitting behind you on the raised benches." Turning, the witness bowed low in awkward suavity, and said, "Good-morning, gentlemen."
"What are these?" asked Napoleon, pointing to twelve silver statues in a cathedral. "The twelve Apostles," was the reply. "Take them down," said Napoleon, "melt them, coin them into money, and let them go about doing good, as their Master did."
"I don't think the Proverbs of Solomon show very great wisdom," said a student at Brown University; "I could make as good ones myself." "Very well," replied President Wayland, "bring in two to-morrow morning." He did not bring them.
"Will you lecture for us for fame?" was the telegram young Henry Ward Beecher received from a Young Men's Christian Association in the West. "Yes, F. A. M. E. Fifty and my expenses," was the answer the shrewd young preacher sent back.
Montaigne tells of a monarch who, on the sudden death of an only child, showed his resentment against Providence by abolishing the Christian religion throughout his dominions for a fortnight.
The triumphs of tact, or common sense, over talent and genius, are seen everywhere. Walpole was an ignorant man, and Charlemagne could hardly write his name so that it could be deciphered; but these giants knew men and things, and possessed that practical wisdom and tact which have ever moved the world.
Tact, like Alexander, cuts the knots it cannot untie, and leads its forces to glorious victory. A practical man not only sees, but seizes the opportunity. There is a certain getting-on quality difficult to describe, but which is the great winner of the prizes of life. Napoleon could do anything in the art of war with his own hands, even to the making of gunpowder. Paul was all things to all men, that he might save some. The palm is among the hardest and least yielding of all woods, yet rather than be deprived of the rays of the life-giving sun in the dense forests of South America, it is said to turn into a creeper, and climb the nearest trunk to the light.