“My vivacious friend, Margaret Fuller, is to edit a journal whose first number she promises for the first of July next, — which, I think, will be written with a good will, if written at all.”[1]
Again he says, April 22, 1840: —
“I have very good hope that my friend Margaret Fuller’s journal — after many false baptisms now saying it will be called ‘The Dial’ and which is to appear in July—will give you a better knowledge of our young people than any you have had.”[2]
On April 19, 1840, she writes to the Rev. W. H. Channing again: —
“I do not expect to be of much use except to urge on the laggards and scold the lukewarm, and act like Helen McGregor to those who love compromise, by doing my little best to sink them in the waters of oblivion.”[3]
On May 31, 1840, she writes to Emerson: —
“There are only thirty names on the Boston subscription list of the ‘Dial.’ I hope you will let me have your paper by next Friday or Saturday.”[4]
Upon such modest encouragement did a periodical proceed which was to be the beginning of a new era in cis-Atlantic literature. The original prospectus — written, I suspect, by Mr. Ripley — was as follows: —
