The Master and the Laureate of the Jews: The Brief Friendship of Henry James and Emma Lazarus

On a visit to New York City in the spring of 1883, Henry James made a friend of Emma Lazarus. The circumstances of their meeting are obscure, but very likely they were brought together by mutual friends, Richard Watson Gilder, brilliant editor of the monthly magazine, the Century, formidable rival of the Atlantic, and his wife, Helena de Kay Gilder, an accomplished artist.

A testimonial dinner for the Italian Shakespearean actor, Tommaso Salvini, on April 26th has been suggested as the occasion on which the two authors were introduced; both allegedly attended with other "luminaries of the Century coterie" (Kessner 53). Henry, we know, was present that evening, but there is some doubt whether Emma was, for she did not read the English translation she had prepared of Salvini's speech--it was read by another guest.

Or perhaps the venue was the Gilders' home. In the 1880s and 1890s, Richard and Helena presided over a salon where they assembled some of the day's most eminent men and women of letters, the arts, the stage, and society. ¹ Emma was a regular visitor to this elite circle; Henry presumably would wish to see his friends at home and would relish the chance to chat with some of his great contemporaries. One of what Emma called Helena's "Friday evenings" might well have been the setting of Henry's introduction to the "Laureate of the Jews," six years his junior, whose celebrated sonnet, "The New Colossus," would grace the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty twenty years hence.

One topic the two writers surely talked of when they were introduced was Emma's forthcoming trip to England where she hoped to meet literary greats, especially Browning for whom she had profound admiration: "what a great, great man he is!" she once commented to Helena Gilder (Young 160). And, as she had done when she met Henry's brother, William, a year earlier, Emma may have regaled Henry with her plan for the resettlement in Palestine of eastern European Jews who had been uprooted by the recent Russian pogroms. While making a literary tour of England, Emma hoped to enlist the support of rich, influential English Jews for her scheme.

Emma made a deep impression on William when they met at Lenox, Massachusetts, in July 1882 at the summer home of Samuel Gray Ward, banker to Henry James, Sr., an early transcendentalist and friend to Emerson and to Emma's father, Moses Lazarus. Writing to his wife, Alice, William announced that he found himself

violently in love again,--"und zwar"--with a lady I met at the Wards' last night and from whom I hope never to be separated--a poetess, a magazinist, & a Jewess, Miss Emma Lazarus, whose name you doubtless know, as did I, without knowing any of her works. . . . She told me my works had converted her from pessimism to optimism! ²

William promised to tell Alice more about Emma when they met, "confident of your not being jealous." Then, alluding to Emma's proto-Zionism, William added: "she brandished the Jewish flag, phylactery, golden calf, or whatever the standard of the Nation might be, very patriotically" (AJ). William's "love affair" with Emma, however, was evanescent. They exchanged a letter or two and never met again. ³

Henry evidently was pleased that this gifted, engaging young woman was going to visit his adopted country and promised to furnish her with letters of introduction to friends who would put her in touch with literary people and Jews who might be sympathetic to her resettlement plan. Whether Emma solicited the letters (she was perfectly capable of doing so), or Henry volunteered to write them is moot. What is significant is that he wrote to close friends about Emma, presumably in complimentary terms, after...