Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/42

28 counsel,. . . she would have been herself astonished at the flame enkindled by her seed of fire, and the practical shape which the movement projected by her in poetic vision is beginning to assume."

In November of 1882 appeared her first &quot; Epistle to the Hebrews,&quot;—one of a series of articles written for the &quot;American Hebrew,&quot; published weekly through several months. Addressing herself now to a Jewish audience, she sets forth without reserve her views and hopes for Judaism, now passionately urging its claims and its high ideals, and again dispassionately holding up the mirror for the shortcomings and peculiarities of her race. She says:—

&quot; 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. . . . Influenced by the same causes, they represent the same results; but the deeper lights and shadows of their Oriental temperament throw their failings, as well as their virtues, into more prominent relief.&quot;

In drawing the epistles to a close, February 24, 1883, she thus summarizes the special objects she has had in view:—

&quot; My chief aim has been to contribute my mite towards arousing that spirit of Jewish enthusiasm which might