It seems clear that Ellen Terry’s success was after all one largely of personality. She was splendidly successful, and no one could for a moment deny the fascinating beauty of most of her acting. Yet was she of the first flight of artists? It is difficult to answer _Yes_. Her Portia and her Beatrice were the finest of her time, probably the finest the stage has yet seen; her Olivia was a lovely, indeed a perfect, realization of Goldsmith’s heroine, and in many another character she charmed and moved her hearers. Yet when all is said and done Ellen Terry, in her most successful parts, was simply her glorified self. It is probably true--though the question was never thoroughly put to the test--that she lacked that power, reserved for the artist of first rank, of identifying herself equally well with widely differing characters. True tragedy lay beyond her. Charles Reade, at one time a constant and helpful critic of her acting, told her that she was capable of any effect, _provided it was not sustained too long_. “A truer word was never spoken,” says Miss Terry. “It has never been in my power to sustain. In private life, I cannot sustain a hatred or a resentment. On the stage, I can pass swiftly from one effect to another, but I cannot fix one, and dwell on it, with that superb concentration which seems to me the special attribute of the tragic actress. To sustain, with me, is to lose the impression that I have created, not to increase its intensity.” Always of a volatile, light-hearted temperament in her own self, the acting of tragedy was with her more a matter of routine duty than the natural response of her nature.