Margaret was at her best,--brilliant, eloquent, charming.

During this time a few gifted men, Emerson, Channing, and others,
decided to start a literary and philosophical magazine called the
_Dial_. Probably no woman in the country would have been chosen as the
editor, save Margaret Fuller. She accepted the position, and for four
years managed the journal ably, writing for it some valuable essays.
Some of these were published later in her book on _Literature and
Art_. Her _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_, a learned and vigorous
essay on woman's place in the world, first appeared in part in the
_Dial_. Of this work, she said, in closing it, "After taking a long
walk, early one most exhilarating morning, I sat down to work, and did
not give it the last stroke till near nine in the evening. Then I felt
a delightful glow, as if I had put a good deal of my true life in it,
and as if, should I go away now, the measure of my footprint would be
left on the earth."

Miss Fuller had published, besides these works, two books of
translations from the German, and a sketch of travel called _Summer
on the Lakes_. Her experience was like that of most authors who are
beginning,--some fame, but no money realized. All this time she was
frail in health, overworked, struggling against odds to make a living
for herself and those she loved. But there were some compensations
in this life of toil. One person wrote her, "What I am I owe in large
measure to the stimulus you imparted. You roused my heart with high
hopes; you raised my aims from paltry and vain pursuits to those which
lasted and fed the soul; you inspired me with a great ambition, and
made me see the worth and the meaning of life."

William Hunt, the renowned artist, was looking in a book that lay on
the table of a friend. It was Mrs. Jameson's _Italian Painters._ In
describing Correggio, she said he was "one of those superior beings of
whom there are so few." Margaret had written on the margin, "And
yet all might be such." Mr. Hunt said, "These words struck out a new
strength in me. They revived resolutions long fallen away, and made me
set my face like a flint."

Margaret was now thirty-four. The sister was married, the brothers had
finished their college course, and she was about to accept an
offer from the _New York Tribune_ to become one of its constant
contributors, an honor that few women would have received. Early in
December, 1844, Margaret moved to New York and beca