Somehow or other he found his way down stairs, and rushed off into the country on a tearing walk, enraged and disgusted with every thing, and with himself most of all. When a man has made up his mind to commit a sin, and then has been disappointed in the fruition of it—when he has sold the birthright of his integrity, without getting the miserable mess of pottage for it which he expected, his feelings are not the most enviable. Ashburner was angry enough to marry the first heiress he met with. First, he half resolved to get up a desperate flirtation with Mrs. Benson; but the success of his first attempt was not encouraging to the prosecution of a second. To kill himself was not in his line; but he felt very like killing some one else. He still feared he might have been made a screen for some other man. But if the other man existed, he could only be reached by fighting successively all the single men of "our set," and a fair sprinkling of those in the second set. Then he thought he must at least leave the place, but his pride still revolted at the idea of running away before a woman. Finally, after walking about ten miles, and losing his dinner, he sobered down gradually, and thought what a fool he had been; and the issue of his cogitations was a very wise double conclusion. He formed a higher opinion of the virtue of American women, and he never attempted any experiments on another.
From Sharpe's London Magazine.
THE MAN OF TACT.
There is no distinctive term more frequently employed, and less generally understood, than the word "Tact." It is in every one's mouth, and many have a vague notion of its meaning, who yet, if required, would find no slight difficulty in giving its definition. It is the application of perceptive common-sense to life's practical details; the correct adaptation of means to ends, from an intuitive knowledge of character, blended with a careful concealment, a discreet evasion of our own, except when amiable faults are avowed, to enhance the impression of our candor. Cameleon-like, "tact" assumes the color of contingent circumstances,—is the vague, yet potent spirit, with its shadowless finger arresting the impulses; an unseen ruler of the thoughts, winding its gossamer yet adamantine meshes like a spell; the uncaught "hic et ubique" arbiter of mortal destinies embodied in a fellow-mortal.
When we speak of the "man of tact," as of one in whom this quality predominates,—as hereafter we shall speak of the man of honor, of genius, and of sense, we must confess that above most other characteristics, this is especially absorbent in its influence, and generally usurps the government of the whole man. It collects into its own stream the channels of other motives, which it renders tributary, until it pervades the whole moral surface with one obliterating deluge. If not watched, it will hence induce a general deceptiveness, for the other impulses will partake of its color, shrewdness will become cunning, discretion will change into artful dexterity. Its very progress is sinuous and oblique, never more so than when assuming the guise of straightforwardness and truth; but if divested of its baser elements, it will soar into the higher intellectuals, and will claim affinity to practical observation, or, to speak phrenologically, to causality. In this view it combines with prudence, also with self-discipline, in the regulation of the temper; in fact, is the child of judgment, inheriting with its parent's calmness somewhat of her coldness too.
Observe that man sitting in the private room of one of our largest mercantile establishments. Risen from a low grade to the direction of a vast concern, at one time intrusted with a mission abroad of a most important yet delicate character, he owes the eminence he has attained entirely to tact. The features are now in repose, take your opportunity to watch them (for they are seldom so, and if he were aware of observation, would assume a different expression); how the wear upon nerves, even of such flexibility, imparts to the fatigued countenance an air of study, ceaseless even in comparative inaction. The open and bald forehead, clear, expansive, impending over deep-set, small, yet fathomless eyes, restless and anxious in their motion; the lips fullish, wearing at the corner a half-contemptuous yet good-humored self-contentment, which tells of the owner's disdain for the game of life, and yet of triumphant complacency at his own successful skill in it. He smiles! Ah! he is thinking of how he deluded that shallow fop, Lord F——, whom fortune raised kindly to conceal his puerilites by a coronet; or perhaps (as his eye dilates with haughtier gaze) he dreams of having struck a nobler quarry, when he outwitted the subtle Count de P——; for neither thought they were following aught but the suggestion of their own will. This is the mystery and mastery of tact. Had his victims seen that smile, the game would have been lost; but he was different to each, the man was changed. The lordling saw before him a free hearty abettor of youthful folly, an Apicius, not a Mentor, one versed in life's vanities, yet still ready to quaff the draught he satirized; sagacious in criticising pleasure, yet reckless as the youngest in its pursuit; but to the Count, the deferential air, the silent evidence of every action, so sedulously courteous, yet so artless, attesting the listener's (for he spoke but to inquire as if of an oracle, and demurred but to render conviction more gracefully attractive) reverence for the old diplomatist's sagacity; the rejoinder dexterously introduced to confirm confidence in his visitor that he was not wasting his instruction,—these and the thousand nameless points of tact, dipped in the fountain of his own deep counsel, instilled the wary practiser's motives into the mind of one, apparently his confessed master in the art of diplomacy, convinced the Count that he was regarded as the condensation of profound thought, of astute sagacity; and it so happened, that if there was one qualification in which the foreigner especially exulted more than any other, it was upon his dexterity in deciphering disposition—in his thorough knowledge of human nature!
We have said he was an adept in listening: indeed it was averred that he obtained a large estate by the quiet attention with which he listened to the toothless twaddle of a senile Dowager—age's garrulity—the echo of an empty hall which thought has quitted. He rarely, however, in any case interrupts the driest drawler, for he has tutored attendants who understand not only whom to admit, but also a hint as to the proper duration of a conference, and these with ready message cut short the intruder's dull delay. If, also, in public or private he be himself interrupted, he never loses his temper or the point; resumes the thread just where it was broken, and with polite, yet unswerving pertinacity, directs the minds of all to the wished-for end, in spite of every purposed or involuntary attempt to distract them into devious channels. Some men, like jackdaws, proclaim with noisy loquaciousness their most private matters, alarming the public horizon with egotistical chatter about their own nests: "tact," as the master of it, Cromwell, knew, acknowledges the "safety of silence," and like the rat,—a subtle politician!—saps vast fabrics by an insidious, unheard gnawing underground!
Briefly, this man listens much, speaks little—mostly the latter when he would conceal his thoughts—keeps his eyes and ears open, his mouth and his heart closed. With numerous admirers, he has many enemies—the latter's hostility is however repressed by fear, and the regard of the other, somehow, never ripens into love; it may be that selfishness, the concomitant of tact, forbids affection. We have shown the fair side of the portrait hitherto drawn from the respectable sphere (as it is called) of life; but it has its evil counterpart or reverse to be seen in a notorious receiver of stolen property, ever watched by, yet ever baffling the police,—one, who, having helped many to the hulks, has by sheer cunning (tact in motley!) himself escaped. The consciences of both are similarly guided by the law of public not private morality—interest is the ruling principle of both; even the drudgery of each assimilates, for a life of dissimulation is a very hard one. What actor would be always on the stage? Both are commercial men in a sense, though one lives at the west-end, the other near Seven-dials; sometimes they meet,—the rich, upon—the poor, before, the bench—"the Justice" in silk "frowns" on the speciously "simple thief" in rags; yet nature has cut the countenances of both from the same piece, and true it is that her "one touch," the prevalence of tact, successful here,—in hard confronting there—renders both "akin."
Yet not always does "tact" array itself in silken softness, or "stoop to conquer:" some ply the trade with no less success under the guise of rough and candid honesty: these men declare loudly that they always speak their minds: come upon us with a bluff sincerity, disarming prudence by an appearance of incautious trust and open-heartedness. They "cannot cog," they cannot sue, they profess noisily to abhor "humbug," as they term it, in every shape:—a strange ingratitude to what they chiefly thrive by; for certain it is, that though doubtlessly "all honorable men," these are the most insidious tacticians, and generally of the worst kind.