LETTER: Autograph letter to Dr. [Abram Samuel] Isaacs.
[Lazarus, Emma]. Autograph Letter to Dr. Isaacs (incomplete and unsigned). [New York]: To Dr. [Abram Samuel] Isaacs, [ND]; 4 pp., approx. 10 x 8,” separated along original fold but with small tape to connect the two sheets; imprint of rusty paper clip evident at upper margin of first leaf; some chipping (not affecting text); very good.
A wonderful letter in which Lazarus responds to Isaacs' request “for a book or poem as a tonic.” She tells him “it is only in the past week that I too have learned for the hundredth time, that in these periods of mental discouragement, these ebb-tides of all energy & faith — help cannot come from without.” She quotes her good friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson: “As my venerated friend Mr. Emerson once wrote to me — 'We must patiently await the return of the Divine Soul which will not desert us in these extremes' .” Isaacs has let her know of his most recent writing project: “I am glad to hear you are engaged upon a work of imagination — that sort of occupation is the greatest comfort & stimulus which has yet been discovered.” She considers the plot “well conceived” with “an excellent field for the development of character & incident. But is it not unnecessarily somber? Why should there be no happiness...” As Ophelia reminds Laertes not to emulate those who “recks not his own rede,” she gently suggests to Isaacs, “you need some glimpse of brightness & sunshine to soften the close of your story.” Her reference to Ophelia arises from Isaacs having criticized a poem of hers recently published in Lippincott’s: “I am sorry my poem...makes such a gloomy impression upon you. I am quite innocent of having 'gone to the charnel-house for a subject' — I took what came to me — what I happened to know & feel at the moment — and found, on the contrary, there was a glow of universal sympathy about the poem, which would make it very cheerful reading!!” She points to the poem’s emphasis on “How little we know ourselves, and & we are all blindly working in the dark.” The extant letter closes with the writer mentioning how much she has to do and so “many engagements for the next week that I cannot promise to be at home...”
Dr. Abram Isaacs (1851-1920), professor of German literature and Semitics, writer and journalist, was born in New York City, the son of Samuel Myers Isaacs, founder of The Jewish Messenger. Likely Abram Isaacs and Emma Lazarus came to know of each other through Emma’s association with the Messenger. Though it is not possible to date the letter precisely, its contents suggests that it was written around 1878-1880, when Emma’s poems were appearing in Lippincott’s on a regular basis and when Isaacs had returned from studies in Germany. During the early 1880s, Isaacs assumed editorial duties for The Jewish Messenger from his father. When Emma published her three essays regarding the status of the Jewish people in 1882, Isaacs firmly dissented from her support of a Jewish state, publishing an article on Emma and her views in the Messenger called “A Problematic Champion.” In a letter to a good friend who wished to rebut Isaacs' article, she declared: “I should greatly prefer to have him treated with silent contempt.” The friendly tone of this letter would imply it predates this breach.
American National Biography, VOL. 11, pp. 700-701.
American Women Writers, Vol. 2, pp. 53-532.
Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. V, 513.
Emma Lazarus In Her World: Life and Letters, by Bette Roth Young, Jewish Publication Society, 1997.
Emma Lazarus: Woman with a Torch, by Eve Merriam, New York: Citadel, 1956.
Letters to Emma Lazarus in the Columbia University Library, by Ralph Leslie Rusk, New York: Columbia University Press, 1939.
NAW, II, pp. 377-379.
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