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 trifles"? If politeness be the offspring of good feeling evinced in social minutiae, tact as certainly springs from the amiability which is thoughtful to spare others pain.

Many a woman, endowed with noble attributes, and rich in sterling virtues, has passed through life little beloved, little appreciated, and seldom sought after, because she was lamentably deficient in this one conciliating, harmonizing quality of tact; because she always rendered those with whom she associated discontented with themselves, and that engendered discontent with her.

A writer who has evidently weighed the importance of the social art of making one's-self acceptable to others, by rendering others pleased with themselves, jocosely advises a man who has failed in inspiring a woman with love for him, "to fill her above the brim with love for herself," assuring him that all which "runs over will be his." That counsellor understood the value of the word "tact."