Page:The Clergyman's Wife.djvu/237



E believe it is generally admitted that the most agreeable associates, in the everyday intercourse of society, are those who put us in a good humor with ourselves. Tactless people have a wonderful faculty of effecting the very opposite. However well tuned may be the instrument they touch, their rough, inconsequent fingers always strike some jarring string. Wounded sensibility exaggerates their bluntness into insult; Confusion enters the doors where they pass in; Discord follows in their steps.

There is an anecdote told of a certain officer who, having lost an arm in battle, ever after judged of the high breeding and good nature of the persons. presented to him, by noticing whether their eyes wandered to the empty coat-sleeve. He knew that those who appeared perfectly unconscious of his loss, were influenced by considerate delicacy; while those whose eyes were constantly turned to the former locality of the deficient member, had souls of a rude texture, insensible to fine perceptions or sympathetic emotions. Tactless people