“ For some years now almost everything that she wrote was published in a "Lippincott’s Magazine," then edited by John Foster Kirk, and we shall still find in her poems the method and movement of her life. Nature is still the fount and mirror, reflecting, and again reflected, in the soul. We have picture after picture, almost to satiety, until we grow conscious of a lack of substance and body and of vital play to the thought, as though the brain were spending itself in dreamings and reverie, the heart feeding upon itself, and the life choked by its own fullness without due outlet. ”

“ In all the universe is love."
Exquisitely tender and refined are the love scenes—at the ball and in the garden—between the dashing prince-lover in search of his pleasure and the devoted girl with her heart in her eyes, on her lips, in her hand. Behind them, always like a tragic fate, the sombre figure of the Spagnoletto, and over all the glow and color and soul of Italy.
In 1881 appeared the translation of Heine’s poems and ballads, which was generally accepted as the best version of that untranslatable poet. ”

“ Beauty, for its own sake, supreme and unconditioned, charmed her primarily and to the end. Her restless spirit found repose in the pagan idea,—the absolute unity and identity of man with nature, as symbolized in the Greek myths, where every natural force becomes a person, and where, in turn, persons pass with equal readiness and freedom back into nature again.
In this connection a name would suggest itself even if it did not appear,—Heine the Greek, Heine the Jew, Heine the Romanticist, as Emma Lazarus herself has styled him ”

“ This is the motto, drawn from Emerson, which she chooses for her poem of "Epochs," which marks a pivotal moment in her life. Difficult to analyze, difficult above all to convey, if we would not encroach upon the domain of private and personal experience, is the drift of this poem, or rather cycle of poems, that ring throughout with a deeper accent and a more direct appeal than has yet made itself felt. It is the drama of the human soul,—"the mystic winged and flickering butterfly," "flitting between earth and sky," in its passage from birth to death. ”

“ Her father's health, which had long been failing, now broke down completely, and the whole winter was one long strain of acute anxiety, which culminated in his death, in March, 1885. The blow was a crushing one for Emma. Truly, the silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl was broken. Life lost its meaning and its charm. Her father’s sympathy and pride in her work had been her chief incentive and ambition, and had spurred her on when her own confidence and spirit failed. ”

“ Then Paris, which this time amazes her " with its splendor and magnificence. All the ghosts of the Revolution are somehow laid," she writes, and she spends six weeks here enjoying to the full the gorgeous autumn weather, the sights, the picture galleries, the bookshops, the whole brilliant panorama of the life; and early in December she starts for Italy.
And now once more we come upon that keen zest of enjoyment, that pure desire and delight of the eyes, which are the prerogative of the poet,—and Emma Lazarus was a poet. ”

“ All are treated with an artistic finish that shows perfect mastery of her craft, without detracting from the freshness and flow of her inspiration. While sounding no absolutely new note in the world, she yet makes us aware of a talent of unusual distinction, and a highly endowed nature,—a sort of tact of sentiment and expression, an instinct of the true and beautiful, and that quick intuition which is like second-sight in its sensitiveness to apprehend and respond to external stimulus. But it is not the purely imaginative poems in this volume that most deeply interest us. ”

“ We can easily realize the chaos and ferment of an over-stimulated brain, steeped in romantic literature, and given over to the wayward leadings of the imagination. Who can tell what is true, what is false, in a world where fantasy is as real as fact? Emerson’s word fell like truth itself, " a shaft of light shot from the zenith," a golden rule of thought and action. ”

“ Of dramatic episode or climax in her life there is none; outwardly all was placid and serene, like an untroubled stream whose depths alone hold the strong, quick tide. The story of her life is the story of a mind, of a spirit, ever seeking, ever striving, and pressing onward and upward to new truth and light. Her works are the mirror of this progress. ”

“ There was, no doubt, something that strongly attracted and attached people to her at this time,—the force of her intellect at once made itself felt, while at the same time the unaltered simplicity and modesty of her character, and her readiness and freshness of enthusiasm, kept her still almost like a child. ”

“ But encouragement even from so illustrious a source failed to elate the young poetess, or even to give her a due sense of the importance and value of her work, or the dignity of her vocation. We have already alluded to her modesty, but there was something more than modesty in her unwillingness to assert herself or claim any prerogative,—something even morbid and exagger ated, which we know not how to define, whether as over-sensitiveness or indifference. ”

“ Once again came the analogy, which she herself pointed out now, to Heine on his mattress-grave in Paris. She, too, the last time she went out, dragged herself to the Louvre, to the feet of the Venus, " the goddess without arms, who could not help." Only her indomitable will and intense desire to live seemed to keep her alive. ”

“ Although, generally speaking, I do not think it ad visable to take celebrated men, especially poets and artists, as a subject for a novel, still I am truly glad to say that I have read your book with the liveliest interest. It is very sincere and very poetical at the same time; the life and spirit of Germany have no secrets for you, and your characters are drawn with a pencil as delicate as it is strong. I feel very proud of the approbation you give to my works, and of the influence you kindly attribute to them on your own talent; an author who writes as you do is not a pupil in art any more ”

“ We cannot restrain a feeling of suddenness and incompleteness and a natural pang of wonder and regret for a life so richly and so vitally endowed thus cut off in its prime. But for us it is not fitting to question or repine, but rather to rejoice in the rare possession that we hold. ”

“ We come upon experience of life in these pages; not in the ordinary sense, however, of outward activity and movement, but in the hidden undercurrent of being. "The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts, but in the silent thoughts by the wayside as we walk." ”

“ From the first he showed her a marked interest and sympathy, which became for her one of the most valued possessions of her life. He criticised her work with the fine appreciation and discrimination that made him quick to discern the quality of her talent as well as of her personality, and he was no doubt attracted by her almost transparent < sincerity and singleness of soul, as well as by the simplicity and modesty that would have been unusual even in a person not gifted. ”

“ Literature was no mere " profession " for her, which shut out other possibilities; it was only a free, wide horizon and background for culture. She was passionately devoted to music, which inspired some of her best poems; and during the last years of her life, in hours of intense physical suffering, she found relief and consolation in listening to the strains of Bach and Beethoven. When she went abroad, painting was revealed to her, and she threw herself with the same ardor and enthusiasm into the study of the great masters ”

“ Was it not the " Ewig-Weibliche " that allows no prestige but its own ? Emma Lazarus was a true woman, too distinctly feminine to wish to be exceptional, or to stand alone and apart, even by virtue of superiority. ”

“ Every student of the Hebrew language is aware that we have in the conjugation of our verbs a mode known as the intensive voice, which, by means of an almost imperceptible modification of vowel-points, intensifies the meaning of the primitive root. A similar significance seems to attach to the Jews themselves in connection with the people among whom they dwell. They are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt. ”

“ The idea formulated by George Eliot has already sunk into the minds of many Jewish enthusiasts, and it germinates with miraculous rapidity. The idea that I am possessed with, says Deronda, is that of restoring a political existence to my people ; making them a nation again, giving them a national centre, such as the English have, though they, too, are scattered over the face of the globe. ”

“ The two long narrative poems, "Bertha" and "Elfrida," are also tragic in the extreme. Both are dashed off apparently at white heat: "Elfrida," over fifteen hundred lines of blank verse, in two weeks; "Bertha," in three and a half. We have said that Emma Lazarus was a born singer, but she did not sing, like a bird, for joy of being alive; and of being young, alas! ”

“ She gives us the breath of the pines and of the cool, salt seas, " inimitably sparkling." Her ears drink the ripple of the tide, and she stops
" To gaze as one who is not satisfied
With gazing at the large, bright, breathing sea."
" Phantasies " (after Robert Schumann) is the most complete and perfect poem of this period. Like " Epochs," it is a cycle of poems, and the verse has caught the very trick of music, alluring, baffling and evasive. ”

“ The dénoûment especially is unfortunate, and sins against our moral and aesthetic instinct. The wretched, tiger-like father stabs himself in the presence of his crushed and erring daughter, so that she may forever be haunted by the horror and the retribution of his death. ”

“ The headings will suffice: outrage, murder, arson, and pillage, and the result,—100,000 Jewish families made homeless and destitute, and nearly $100,000,000 worth of property destroyed. Nor need we recall the generous outburst of sympathy and indignation from America. "It is not that it is the oppression of Jews by Russia," said Mr. Evarts in the meeting at Chickering Hall Wednesday evening, February 4; "it is that it is the oppression of men and women by men and women, and we are men and women." ”

“ Channing gave her a package, which proved to be a copy of his own book on Thoreau, and the pocket compass which Thoreau carried to the Maine woods and on all his excursions. Before leaving the Emersons she received the proof-sheets of her drama of "The Spagnoletto," which was being printed for private circulation. She showed them to Mr. Emerson, who had expressed a wish to see them, and, after reading them, he gave them back to her with the comment that they were " good." She playfully asked him if he would not give her a bigger word to take home to the family. ”

“ Thus far their religion [the Jewish] , whose mere preservation under such adverse conditions seems little short of a miracle, has been deprived of the natural means of development and progress, and has remained a stationary force. The next hundred years will, in our opinion, he the test of their vitality as a people ; the phase of toleration upon which they are only now entering will prove whether or not they are capable of growth. ”

“ Emerson s enthusiasm; and William Ellery Channing, whose figure stands out like a gnarled and twisted scrub-oak,—a pathetic, impossible creature, whose cranks and oddities were submitted to on account of an innate nobility of character. " Generally crabbed and reticent with strangers, he took a liking to me," says Emma Lazarus. "The bond of our sympathy was my admiration for Thoreau, whose memory he actually worships, having been his constant companion in his best days, and his daily attendant in the last years of illness and heroic suffering. ”

“ Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism." From this time dated the crusade that she undertook in behalf of her race, and the consequent expansion of all her faculties, the growth of spiritual power which always ensues when a great cause is espoused and a strong conviction enters the soul. Her verse rang out as it had never rung before,—a clarion note, calling a people to heroic action and unity, to the consciousness and fulfillment of a grand destiny. When has Judaism been so stirred as by " The Crowing of the Red Cock " and
THE BANNER OF THE JEW.
Wake, Israel, wake! ”

“ Lest our great memory fall in disrepute." }}
The " Dance to Death " was published, along with other poems and translations from the He brew poets of mediaeval Spain, in a small volume entitled " Songs of a Semite." The tragedy was dedicated, " In profound veneration and respect to the memory of George Eliot, the illustrious writer who did most among the artists of our day towards elevating and ennobling the spirit of Jewish nationality."
For this was the idea that had caught the imagination of Emma Lazarus, a restored and independent nationality and repatriation in Palestine. ”