Emerson as Mentor

In 1868 the precocious young Emma Lazarus sent Ralph Waldo Emerson a copy of her first book. Over the next few years, Emerson became a trusted mentor, offering notes on her poems that ranged from enthusiastic praise to more critical demands. But whether complementing or criticizing, Emerson remained a supportive reader.

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Lazarus assumed her poems would be included in her mentor's 1874 anthology entitled Parnassus. Instead she was surprised and angry to find her name missing from Emerson's selections. She sent him a strong letter demanding an explanation. "Your favorable opinion having been confirmed by some of the best critics of England and America," she wrote, "I felt as if I had won for myself by my own efforts a place in any collection of American poets, and I find myself treated with absolute contempt in the very quarter where I had been encouraged to build my fondest hopes."

There is no record of Emerson's response, but their friendship seemed to have survived this rift. Lazarus' respect for Emerson remained constant, and she often praised him in essays and poems. Emerson also invited his "dear friend" to Concord in 1876, and again in 1879.

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