Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/172

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X.

THE DIAL.

Nothing but the launching of a ship concentrates into short space so much of solicitude as the launching of a new magazine. Margaret Fuller writes to her friend Mrs. Barlow: “I have the pleasure of sending you the first number of a periodical some of us, your old friends, are going to scribble in. The introduction is by Mr. Emerson; pieces on ‘Critics’ and the ‘Allston Gallery’ by me. The next number will be better.”[1]

To Mr. Emerson, as one of the ship-owners, she writes far more freely (July 5, 1840): —

“Until I shall have seen Mr. R. [Ripley] I cannot answer all your questions; mais à present, you can have as many numbers as you want for yourself or your friends of this first number, but our contract with them was that twelve numbers should be given to Mr. R. each quarter for the use of contributors. Of these I receive two. Mr. Thoreau will have it, of course, as we hope his frequent aid. But I did not expect to furnish it to all who may give a piece occasionally. I have not sent it to E. H. [Ellen Hooper] or C. S. [Caroline Sturgis] or N. I sent a list to W. and J. [Weeks & Jordan] of those to

  1. Fuller MSS. i. 23.