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16. Retreat from Her Siphoning Sea
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attempt to understand her, he cautiously says that he will yet come “to know the world through your eyes,” rather than through this “quarantine of temperament wherefrom I deal courteously with all comers, but through cold water.”20 Even if Emerson hints here of a wish to escape the confines of his cold temperament, the intensity of feeling Fuller now unleashed onto him, as we shall see, would increasingly tax his patience, cooling his desire to do so. 16SRetreat from Her Siphoning Sea Complicating Fuller’s life the winter of 1839–40 were two new projects she undertook that, though rewarding, were physically and emotionally draining. She accepted editorship of the Transcendentalists’ new literary journal, the Dial, in the fall of 1839. Larry Reynolds contends that this journal was largely Fuller’s inspiration because it grew out of the propensity of Fuller and her friends to exchange among themselves “pacquets” or “portfolios” of letters, prints, books, journal entries, critical essays, and poems, many items of which Fuller later included in the Dial. The journal was in effect an outgrowth of Fuller’s love of letter writing, of her way of staying connected to the world. Fuller’s habit of making the exchange of letters the hallmark of true friendship began when Timothy moved the family to Groton in 1833. It was a way of interacting she had been trained to practice as a child by her congressman father, who expected to receive from her finely written letters while he was in Washington. Fuller continued this practice in her interaction with Emerson, who grew to know and love her through her warm and informative letters. Just as Emerson liked getting letters from Fuller, so he liked the idea of a Transcendental journal and credited “her radiant genius & fiery heart” as being “perhaps the real centre that drew so many & so various individuals” to agree to write for it. In a letter soliciting poems from Ellery Channing, Emerson early on said he thought the Dial was “of better promise than any [journal] we have had or have in America.” He wrote Ellery how he had promised Margaret that he would offer her his “assistance to write & to collect for her.”1 Apparently he did not have much success doing the latter. For, though all members of the Transcendental Club thought the journal a good idea, few had the time to write for it. Thus Fuller from the first had trouble finding contributors for it. James Clarke, still in Cincinnati, was now married and involved in a halfdozen other projects, including trying to keep the Western Messenger afloat. Dr. Channing’s Unitarian socialist nephew, William Henry Channing, who had been eager to see the Dial started, now had no time to write for it since he had recently agreed to take over the Western Messenger for Clarke, who wanted to bring his pregnant wife back east. Even Henry Hedge, who had been one of the first people to argue the need for a Transcendentalist magazine, had changed his mind. He was upset that people were increasingly linking New England Transcendentalism Retreat from Her Siphoning Sea 123 124 emerson, friend and guide with atheism and the denial of the supernatural in religion. And they were doing so even though the Dial’s May 1840 prospectus had plainly stated that its writers were united in their love of freedom, hope for social progress, and faith “in Divine Providence, rather than in human prescription.”2 The aims of the Dial as initially stated were so vague that its “united” writers were constantly clashing. Alcott complained that it was too worldly for his “Orphic Sayings” (apothegms extracted from his journals). The social agitator Theodore Parker argued that it lacked substance. Another critic, the Unitarian scholar and charter member of the Transcendental Club, George Ripley, thought the Dial “not prononcé enough,” while Carlyle from across the Atlantic complained that it had “a very good soul, only no body.” Still, the journal might have been a success had Fuller been able to get the more professionally trained writers to submit their articles on time, or even, despite promises, to write them at all.3 As a result, during the two years of her editorship, Fuller often used unpolished materials sent her by friends in personal portfolios or, and increasingly, in her second year, her own writing, as she did in the spring of 1841. She wrote “in every gap of time,” sometimes by candlelight in her chilly Jamaica Plain bedroom. When pressed...