The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-12-16
THE ROSES OF LIFE
And Lilies Of Eternal Peace to
Deck Kate Fields Grave.
TWAS Lillian WRITINGS TRIBUTE
Review of Miss Fields
Life and Work.
She Was the Artist Born-Her
Culture Exquisite and
Extended.
rBY Lillian WHITING.I

Kate Field was a woman who i'm
pressed the imagination. She abound
ed in spiritual vitality. Delicate in
physique, artistic in temperament, ex-
quisite in taste, lofty in all poetic and
heroic feeling, she had that intense
and finely strung nature that leaves
in some form or other it's haunting
impress She was
made of spirit and fire, and dew"
and her tenacitY of endurance was
striking illustration of the signal power
of the mind over the body. The pathos
of her death, alone in a foreign land,
is something that Lies too deep for
tears" The unfaltering courage of her
struggle during the last five years of
her life, the ceaseless and splendid
energy which she opposed to a series
of disasters, translates personal regard
to that enthusiasm which greatness of
character must compel from US all.
Kate Field was one, indeed,
''Who walked too straight for fortunes
end,
Who loved too true to keep friend"
and she had the defects of her quail
ties which sometimes led to her being
misunderstood. She was sincere to a
fault. Margaret Fuller once said that
"A truth-teller is a truth-cOmpeller,"
and this assertion might we'll be ap-
piled to Miss Field. Her truth was
crystal clear, and hypocrisy and in
sincerity shrank abashed before her
presence. Not unfrequently she pro-
claimed some unpalatable truth with
less tact than frankness, from which
a more polite person would have re-
Trained. Her friendships were some
what of the heroic fibre, and those
who require the ministry of 1attery
did not receive from her and incense
to their seIf-love. Friendship repre-
scented to her a noble sincerity and I'M
faltering faith which held nothing in
common with vain phrasings. She had
the unconscious exacting of a lofty
nature; where she gave faith she gave
largely, and she expected the same
generous and genuine comprehension
in return When this failed she
scorned to explain herself, and thus
she was liable to demonstrations. A
keen sense of honor was among her
strongest qualities, and as a friend
Kate Field was ideal. Her loyalty was
fawless. and her tenderness was as
profound and as unchanging as it was
delicate and reserved in outward de-
mOnstratiOn.
Miss Fields varied and pTismatic
life flashes before one like a romance
of destiny. 1t was strangely rich in
exquisite and unique experiences. 1t
rose before me like an incarnation,
like a vision. like dream, on June
morning of this past summer, as l sat
alone in the English cemetery in Flor
| ence by the tomb OF Elizabeth Barrett
| Browning. BY some rhythmic coin
| cIdence of fate the day was almost the
anniversary of Mrs. Browning's death
| (which occurred at Casa Guidi on June
| %. 1860, at which time Kate Field
/ was in Florence under the care of lisa
| Blagden the young girl often passed
! days at a time with the BrOwnings at
| Casa Guidi, and at the time of Mrs
| BrOwning's death she wrote for the
Atlantic Monthly a paper on this great
| est of woman poets, which remains &c
this day the most perfect interpreta-
ton ever given of Mrs. Browning
From this l had quoted in an article
on Mrs. Browning, in a magazine arti
Gle few months since, and just after
Miss Fields death in Hawaii. last May
| a tender tribute to her in the leading
Honolulu paper (entitled ''She will b'
| Immortal in our Hearts') said of Mis-
Field:
'She has spoken Of her life in Ital!