Kate Field, who has been somewhat unwisely canonized by an injudicious annotator, was much in Newport, equally fearless in body and mind, and perhaps rather limited than enlarged by early contact with Italy and Mrs. Browning. She would come in from a manly boating-trip and fling herself on the sofa of the daintiest hostess, where the subsequent arrival of the best-bred guests did not disturb her from her position; but nothing would have amused her more than the deification which she received after death from some later adorers of her own sex.
I find the following sketches of different Newport visitors in a letter dated September 2, 1869:--
We had an elder poet in Mr. [William Cullen] Bryant, on whom I called, and to my great surprise he returned it. I never saw him before. There is a little hardness about him, and he seems like one who has been habitually bored, but he is refined and gentle — thinner, older, and more sunken than his pictures — eyes not fine, head rather narrow and prominent; delicate in outline. He is quite
