--_Swift._
* * * * *
The highest and best of all the moral conditions for conversation is
what we call tact. I say a condition, for it is very doubtful whether it
can be called a single and separate quality; more probably it is a
combination of intellectual quickness with lively sympathy. But so
clearly is it an intellectual quality, that of all others it can be
greatly improved, if not actually acquired, by long experience in
society. Like all social excellences it is almost given as a present to
some people, while others with all possible labor never acquire it. As
in billiard-playing, shooting, cricket, and all these other facilities
which are partly mental and partly physical, many never can pass a
certain point of mediocrity; but still even those who have the talent
must practise it, and only become really distinguished after hard work.
So it is in art. Music and painting are not to be attained by the crowd.
Not even the just criticism of these arts is attainable without certain
natural gifts; but a great deal of practice in good galleries and at
good concerts, and years spent among artists, will do much to make even
moderately-endowed people sound judges of excellence.
Tact, which is the sure and quick judgment of what is suitable and
agreeable in society, is likewise one of those delicate and subtle
qualities or a combination of qualities which is not very easily
defined, and therefore not teachable by fixed precepts.
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