The high-minded judgment which has enabled Mrs. Fiske to select plays which never have a false appeal, her freedom from that self-importance which distorts the meaning of plays for the sake of giving prominence to the “star,” are indications of her qualities as a woman. She has broad sympathies, enthusiasms for affairs outside the theatre, and cherishes no inflated notion as to her importance other than as a woman of the theatre. In her travels, or visiting other theatres, it is her habit to be heavily veiled and altogether lacking in the “theatrical.”[176] She is much more nervous when addressing, _in sua persona_, a small meeting in the interests of some humane movement than when facing a theatre full of people. On the other hand she has an unusually keen sense of humor, and some of her best bits of acting are said to be in impromptu efforts called forth by some circumstance arising within the “family” of her company.[177] One of her engaging traits is her complete freedom from the spirit of rivalry and criticism that sometimes characterizes actors. By those close to her she is said never to speak ill of any one. Indeed her acquaintance among other “stars” is limited; while in the world outside the theatre her friends are many and often distinguished. It may not be uninteresting that Mrs. Fiske, unlike many of her profession, likes “playing one-night stands”; that she does not weary of the endless travel of theatrical life;[178] that she is continually studying to perfect her impersonations or to prepare for future work; and that she has a playful dread of being referred to as “intellectual.” That word, as applied to Mrs. Fiske, has become hackneyed. The warmest admirers of Mrs. Fiske will admit her limitations. They will, indeed, be grateful for them; for her physical and mental equipment, while they withheld from her certain ranges of drama, simply forbade the adoption by her of the tissue of unrealities which constitutes conventional acting. Without either losing for a moment the sense of conditions imposed by the theatre, or gaining her effects by means of commonplaceness set baldly on the stage, she has evolved an extraordinary realism made up of truth to nature combined with a sense of theatric art so nicely adjusted that even in its most telling moments it is the art that conceals art. It is, in the last analysis, a method that is the visible expression of a rich nature. And by the unalterable fixity of her high aims, the dignity and strength of what she has tried to do, she has earned the gratitude of all those who look forward to an influential, high-minded American stage.