The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-05-28
Splendid Tribute Paid TO Memory
Of Kate Field.


Few are they who visit our land an'
find no welcome, but fewer still COM
into a more genuine adoption than W
have gladly accorded Kate Field. Gu
lives were richer for her coming in anC
going out among, US, our days were hap
pier for her smiles, our hopes were
stronger for the clear vibrations Of bel
voice. and henceforth our days will be
emptier for her dying.
Her death brings afresh to us that in
tolerable sense of waste we feel when
some strong warrior Of Truth drops
from the ranks. We are newly filled
with our own heIpIessness in face of the
lesson Nature would teach us-that her
laws are fnexorabIe and infexibIe when
they have been strained, even in a
worthy cause.
Not an image of death, however, will
the name of Kate Field suggest TO us,
but = vision of life; life devoted, strenu-
Gus and wide; life spent in the service
of humanity; life crowned with the
olive wreath Of appreciation. For Kate
Field was prominently a worker. She
chose TO be a worker in the busy tur-
mofI of life rather than Iinger in the
shady byways of art. Yet there was a
time in her life, though few of us may
have known it, when she lived in sunny
Italy, in Florence, that flower of all
cities and city of all flowers" More
than that. she lived with a most charm
ing woman, Miss Isabella Blagden, her
self a poet and Mrs. Browning's init
mate among women.
What days those must have been to
this unfolding intellect! l can picture
to myself the view from Miss Blagden's
villa, allOsguardO-you'H find it in
Aurora Leigh, imprisoned like a fly in
amber. 1t watched over Florence, they
tell us. it looked across the ArnO, it
cleaned towards F'iesoIe and it's villas.
Then what journeys they made to
Florence, she and ISa-as Miss Field
called her-what rare days they spent
with the BrOwnings, and what even
ings with the TrOllOpes and their cOterie
Of genius-the Hawthornes, George Ell
lot Mary SomerviIle, Harriet Hosmer,
Walter Savage Lander and others who
came there Can you not feel the charm
of those tender Italian evenings on Mrs.
TrOlIOpe's terrace, where the realest Of
people talked of stirring themes? The
girl among them wrote this description:
Opening upon a garden with it's lofty
pillars, its tessellated marble floor. its
walls inIaid with terra Gotta. bas-
hv- Of
with here and there a niche devoted to
some antique Madonna, the terrace
has all the charm of a campo sGHtO with
out the chill of grave upon it; or
were few cowIed monks to walk with
folded arms along its space, one might
fancy it the cloister of a monastery"
To Kate Field we are indebted for a
fine description of Mrs. Browning in
her home. After sketching the drawing
room in Casa Guidi that especial
haunt of poets" with its tapestried
walls, its old pictures of saints and
pieces of Florentine carving, contrasted
with the brightly bound gift books from
brother authors, she says: 'Dante's
grave profile, a cast of Keats face and
brow taken after death, a pen-an-ink
sketch of Tennyson, the genial face of
John Kenyon, little paintings of the
boy Browning attracted the eve a
quaint mirror and the hundred nothings
that add charm were always massed in
this room. But the glory of it all. and
that which sanctified all. was her form.
with her table strewn with writing al
ways at her side" Here she Law. as her
husband said of her. writing like a
spirit" and on whatever scraps Of paper
she had putting away her work when
anyone entered. only TO take il up again
when alone. And so Aurora Leigh was
written. BY the light OF those Casa
Guidi windows. in that very drawing
room, Mrs. Browning must have read /
to Miss BIagden and her charge por-
lions of Aurora Leigh. which was then I
a-writing. 1 imagine the delight of it I
the hearing the voice of that spirit /
poet in her own room. reading out her (
greatest work. I believe that Kate
Field never forgot the inspiration OF
those days, though she told US in Homo
lulu little of that other soft Paradise 2
beyond the seas.
She never cared 10 speak much OF her
self. She seems 10 have had a mastery .
way of clearing the decks Of her mind .
for action. of concentrating every atom
of force on the hostile facts before her.
her trains OF victory
were enriched by thousands OF captive
facts and by gIittering spOils wrested
from Sphinxes OF pride and prejudice.
As matter Of course she never forgot
hat she came TO Honolulu 10 get stTate-
yic points, not 20 give them.
So far as can learn. she has spoken
If her life in Italy 10 only one woman in
IOnolulu-wOuld I were that fortunate
;hei It came about very incidentally.
This one. who had met Miss Field often.
Knew nothing of her early life until one
lay she picked up q recent BOOkman.
n an article on Mrs Browning was q ,
description by Kate Field that revealed
o the astonished reader an intimate
Of the BrOwnings and their
-IOrentine circle. When Miss Field was