Most of the actors with whom I have had relation were good company; they had seen many men and many places; and their journeyings had worn off any abrading angularities their personalities may have possessed. They had mixed with all sorts and conditions of men; and they thereby gained the shrewd knowledge of human nature which they needed in their art. They had acquired polish even if they did not always possess culture. They were no more likely to be bookish in their tastes, or even to be widely read, than are the practitioners of the other professions, painters and musicians, most of whom are probably too alertly interested in the immediate present to be tempted into dusty exploration of the past. They were often apt in anecdote and quick of wit, with a wide command over words, the result of their acquisition of the sharp and swift dialog of the stage. In no other calling have I found men swifter to make a joke or to take one, even if it happened to be pointed against themselves. It is sometimes asserted that actors as a class are inclined to be unduly aware of their own excellence in the quality they profess and even unduly inclined to communicate to others their own opinion of their own achievements. My experience, such as it is, does not support this assertion. I have found the men of the stage at least as modest as the men of the studio and the men of the study. Over-swollen vanity is not the exclusive property of any one profession, and I doubt if it is more frequent in actors than in authors or artists. Where I comb out my memories the two most exuberant examples of ingrowing and outflowering self-appreciation that I ever had occasion to observe were both of them physicians, who were also authors and who were wholly unable to resist the ever present temptation to dilate upon their own triumphs and to confide to all listeners the frequent compliments they had gluttonously accepted.