Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/278

 XXII

EMMA LAZARUS

HILE thoroughly feminine, and a mistress of the social art and charm, she was—though without the slighestslightest [sic] trace of pedantry—the natural companion of scholars and thinkers. Her emotional nature kept pace with her intellect; as she grew in learning and mental power, she became still more earnest, devoted, impassioned.

These advances marked her writings—especially her poetry, which changed in later years from its early reflection of the Grecian ideals and took on a lyrical and veritably Hebraic fire and imagination. You have rightly said of her that 'she wrote only when inspired'; and there was a contagious inspiration in her Semitic ardor, her satire, wrath and exaltation. That she was able to impart these qualities to sustained creative work is shown by her strangely powerful drama 'The Dance to Death,' unique in American poetry. Viewed merely on the literary side, her abilities were so progressive, under the quickening force of a lofty motive, that her early death is a deplorable loss in a time when so much verse, if not as sounding brass, seems to come from tinkling cymbals. [264]