She longed for freedom. Every limitation was a prison's wall. Rules were shackles, and forms were made for serfs and slaves.
She gave her utmost thought. She praised all generous deeds; applauded the struggling and even those who failed.
She pitied the poor, the forsaken, the friendless. No one could fall below her pity, no one could wander beyond the circumference of her sympathy. To her there were no outcasts—they were victims. She knew that the inhabitants of palaces and penitentiaries might change places without adding to the injustice of the world. She knew that circumstances and conditions determine character—that the lowest and the worst of our race were children once, as pure as light, whose cheeks dimpled with smiles beneath the heaven of a mother's eyes. She thought of the road they had traveled, of the thorns that had pierced their feet, of the deserts they had crossed, and so, instead of words of scorn she gave the eager hand of help.
No one appealed to her in vain. She listened to the story of the poor, and all she had she gave. A god could do no more.
The destitute and suffering turned naturally to her. The maimed and hurt sought for her open door, and the helpless put their hands in hers.
She shielded the weak—she attacked the strong.
Her heart was open as the gates of day. She shed kindness as the sun sheds light. If all her deeds were flowers, the air would be faint with perfume. If all her charities could change to melodies, a symphony would fill the sky.
Mary Fiske had within her brain the divine fire called genius, and in her heart the "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin."
She wrote as a stream runs, that winds and babbles through the shadowy fields, that falls in foam of flight and haste and laughing joins the sea.
A little while ago a babe was found—one that had been abandoned by its mother—left as a legacy to chance or fate. The warm heart of Mary Fiske, now cold in death, was touched. She took the waif and held it lovingly to her breast and made the child her own.