ABSTRACT
A determined, free spirit, obligated to no one, Fielde had roamed about Asia and Europe, carefully doling out her travel allowance and terminal pay (her alimony), provided by the Baptist Foreign Missionary Society; now she was back in New York. Returned to a country where she had close ties in several cities, and free to settle wherever she wanted, she chose New York with its extraordinary cultural offerings; at heart she was an urban sophisticate. The absence in China of Western performing arts had whetted an appetite for drama, music, and lectures which she had developed during her two-year stay in Philadelphia. To her confidant Nolan, she wrote: “New York continues to be very interesting to me. My native land has for me the charm of novelty combined with the sweetness of familiarity. I am studying it.”1
