Whether they were overweighted by their ponderous title or whether they
created an artificial atmosphere too etherial for common mortals, the
first generation of Transcendentalists was also the last. They had no
successors and _The Dial_, as their organ, was short lived. It
undoubtedly exercised a considerable influence in its day; and
individual members of the long-named fraternity did much to mould the
thought of the American people in after years. Among these were Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, George William Curtis, Francis George
Shaw, translator of Eugene Sue and of George Sand, and father of Colonel
Robert Shaw, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Dr. Howe and his fiancee
Julia Ward, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight and perhaps a score of other
bright spirits. Occasional attendants at their gatherings and
contributors to _The Dial_ were Horace Greeley, William Page,
afterward President of The National Academy of Design, Thomas Wentworth
Higginson and my father, Charles Sears.
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