SD2452. Kate Field to Cordelia Riddle Sanford
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 286–287.
Florence
June 29, 1861.
Darling,—
I am sick, sick at heart, for dear Mrs. Browning is dead. The news was as sudden as it is dreadful, for though she has been quite ill for a week past, yet her health has always been so feeble that I firmly believed she would rally as of yore. I believed that God had more work for her on earth before he called her to fill a glorious place in heaven. During her illness I have not seen her once, as she was unable to converse, but I went every day, and always the report has been more encouraging. Two days ago we saw Mr. Browning, and he like myself deceived himself by founding hopes upon her powers of endurance. Yesterday Mrs. Browning said that she felt better, read a little in the “Athenæum” and saw Miss Blagden as late as eight o’clock in the evening, who left her with but little misgiving. This morning, at half-past four, she expired unconsciously to herself with the words, “It is beautiful,” upon her lips. Poor Mr. Browning was entirely unprepared for the terrible blow. When she raised herself to pronounce her dying words wherein she expressed the glorious life which was opening upon her, he thought it was simply a movement premonitory to coughing. I have not seen him, but Miss Blagden, who is constantly with him, says he is completely prostrated with grief. The poor boy wanders about the house, sad and disconsolate, hardly realizing that his angel mother is no more. We went to the house the moment we heard of Mrs. Browning’s death, but could be of no use. All that we did was to buy flowers and consecrate them by placing them around all that is left of one who was too pure to remain longer in this world. They have cut off all her hair, and the emaciated form was heart-rending to look upon. I almost regret that I have seen her in death, only that I do not wish to shun the house of mourning. I am sufficiently callous as it is. Her last act to me was one of kindness, insisting upon our going up to Villa Brichieri with Mr. Browning in a carriage. Almost the last thing that I did in her presence was to kneel before her, and say that when near her, I always longed to be at her feet—and she was so gentle and kind, so loving and unassuming. Her character was as perfect as God permits in the flesh. What Mr. Browning will do, I don’t know. His nature is so excitable that at first I fear the consequences; that in the end this terrible loss will chasten and perfect him, I trust and pray. He who has never had any heavy affliction is now to feel its rod of iron, iron that remorselessly enters the heart and lacerates in the name of the Highest. I cannot realize what has befallen us and the world. The almost last link that binds me to Florence has been sundered, and I long more than ever to be away. Mr. Browning will surely leave Italy, and I should not be surprised did he seek a home elsewhere. Italy and his angel wife are one. Or perhaps for this very reason he will be the more ready to remain. I doubt this. Now I know nothing more than that she is dead, to-morrow we are to learn if anything can be done, and are to do it if called upon. I cannot help perceiving that Dr. Wilson, who was called in owing to the absence of Grisanowsky, and who is most forbidding in physiognomy and is said by some to be a humbug, has hastened Mrs. Browning’s death by resorting to a violent practice which her weak body was thoroughly incapable of enduring. He began by frightening her, telling her what a fearful state her entire system was in,—a fine way to treat an imaginative person. Grisanowsky knew her constitution, and it does seem most unfortunate that he should have been absent. Since the medical murder of Cavour, I have begun to distrust all doctors in Italy. Dear Mrs. Browning had reached the age of fifty, and had labored long and nobly for humanity, therefore we must be resigned, and think that her release from a long-suffering diseased body is Heaven’s reward for a pure, religious life, religious in the truest sense. I can never forget her, and hope that her memory may lead me to better things than have yet been my aspiration. I thank God that I was permitted to know her, that I can claim her as a friend, that I may look upward for one more tie binding me to a life hereafter.
Text: Lilian Whiting, Kate Field: a Record (Boston, 1899), pp. 134–137.
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