University of Virginia Library

Discrepancies and Special Elements Discussed

In the first volume, "A Sign from the West" with a printed "C." (usually the symbol of Cranch) is attributed to C. P. Cranch by both Cooke and the Harvard library set, but in the British Museum copy, it is given to J. F. Clarke. This is a review of Andrew Wylie's Sectarianism in Heresy (I.171-172). One cannot be certain, upon examining the contributions of Cranch and Clarke, which one is the more likely author, since both contributed prose and poetry to the Dial,[8] and both were gentlemen of the clergy, interested in reviewing theological works. The prose style appears to me more characteristic of Cranch's writing.[9] Since both "First Crossing the Alleghanies" (I.59) and "Nature and Art" (I.173) are marked with a printed "F. C." one suspects that the "C." for "A Sign from the West" designates Cranch. Because this occurs as the second entry from the top of page iv, Emerson may have been careless in inscribing "C. F. Clarke's" as he did for the first and the fourth lines on the same page.

The second discrepancy is the attribution of "The Day Breaks" (I.193) to Ellen Hooper in the Harvard copy and to "C. S." in the British Museum Dial. The "Z." for Caroline Sturgis, at the foot of the page clearly identifies the second of the two poems as Caroline's, while the separate identification cited by Cooke shows the upper poem, "The Wood-Fire," to be Ellen's (II.55). Emerson probably failed to look directly at the page for the printed "Z." when he was filling out his set of the Dial which is now in Harvard; hence he attributed both poems on the page to Ellen Sturgis.

Volume Two offers one discrepancy, that for "De Profundis Clamavi," an unattributed sonnet placed directly after the "Sonnet: To Mary on Her Birthday" (II.359) and before "Music: To Martha" (II.360), both marked "B. F. P" in print. These two poems were written by Benjamin Franklin Presbury, then an attractive young man who was to become a lawyer, litterateur, and librarian as well as author of the anti-slavery novel, The Mustee (see Cooke, II.129-132). It is clear that "De Profundis Clamavi" is also his work, although Emerson carelessly inscribed only the "B. F." part of his name directly under his written "B. F. Presbury" for the preceding poem and before that of the "Music" entry (on the top of the next page in the Table of Contents, II.v).

The third volume offers four discrepancies. The first — for "Vespers. (Sa.)" (III.76-77) — is the gravest problem, for it duplicates the attribution in the Harvard copy to George W. Curtis, which Cooke flatly declares to be impossible. "The personal letter" from Curtis that Cooke cites needs to be presented in view of another "new" attribution to Curtis made later by Emerson: "When 'The Dial' was published I was a boy, and I knew very little of its management or 'make-up.' I did not write 'Vespers'; and, so far as I remember I wrote only one poem, beginning, 'Death is here and death is there.' I sent it anonymously, and I do not think that the authorship was known to the editors" (II.170). This seems to be almost definitive, especially since the one positively identified poem by Curtis, "A song of Death" (IV.87), is different in style from both "Vespers" and the "Lines" (IV.265) ascribed by Emerson. The printed "Sa." for the author, at first, might be taken for Jonathan Ashley Saxton, the lawyer and radical reformer (see Cooke, II.113-116) and author of "Prophecy" in the Dial (II.83-121). A comparison of the style of that long prose piece and that of "Vespers" fails to support this assumption. This remains one of the unresolved blanks in all the lists. We have here virtually disposed also of Emerson's inserted "Geo. Curtis" for the "Lines" (X.) on III.265 as an error, by virtue of style and Curtis's letter, as well. Cooke's ascription to "Ellen Cooper (?)" seems likely, but unfortunately the Harvard Dial fails to clear up the matter.

In this same volume are two items attributed differently by both the Harvard Dial and by Cooke. In the text Emerson writes "C. S." or "Caroline Sturgis." About the second, i.e., the four lines at the foot of the page, "I asked the angels to come to me" (III.85), there is little doubt that the attribution is correct; it was omitted in the Harvard copy probably because it does not appear as an entry in the Table of Contents, and, being only a quatrain, was overlooked in the text itself. Cooke cautiously leaves it blank. The earlier instance is "To Shakespeare" (III.81), which was ascribed to William Ellery Channing in the Harvard Dial, that was very reasonably followed by Cooke. The lapsus memoriae of Emerson in ascribing it to "C. S." is, perhaps, a slight token of the importance that this, the younger

of the two cultivated and brilliant Sturgis sisters, had assumed for Emerson — "the American Bettine," in Higginson's phrase (Cooke, II.60). There is increasing evidence of the emotional and creative tie that linked Emerson and Caroline.[10]

There is only one more item worthy of slight comment in the third volume, Emerson's reprint, in the Dial (III.529-531), of a passage on friendship from Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose (Fragment B, lines 5201-5284). No attempt is made to cast the passage into modern English; it is obviously filler, coming as it does just before the final section, "Record of the Months," but filler which nevertheless bears traces of Emerson's taste in reading and in topics. Cooke prints it as Emerson's (his choice presumably) with a question mark, while it is unmarked in the Harvard and British Museum copies, probably assumed to be the editor's selection.

Volume four offers a similar type of problem, scarcely of great importance; the extracts now, from the Persian Desatir or Regulations, part of the Dial's "Ethnical Scriptures" in the issue of July, 1843 (IV.59-62), are attributed by Cooke to Emerson, with a question mark, although Cooke attributes the beginning of the series of excerpts to Thoreau (III.493-494) and also two later sets to Thoreau (IV.205-210 and IV.402-404). The last of the series (IV.529-536) is ascribed to Emerson with no dubiety. Since neither of the two sets is marked with the compiler's name, Cooke must have relied upon other evidence, internal or external.

A slight discrepancy in the poem, "Lines" (IV.306), by Caroline Tappan, is resolved in favor of Cooke's choice, by contrast with the Harvard copy's ascription to her sister, Ellen S. Hooper — no serious matter. The British Museum copy confirms Cooke's questioning ascription of the delightful six-line "The Three Dimensions" (IV.226) unequivocally to Emerson, as it does for Emerson's essay, "The Comic" (IV.247-256). Similarly, the British Museum copy confirms the ascription to Channing of "Autumn," "Autumn Woods," and "The Death of Shelley" (IV.186-187, 350, and 471) and to Samuel G. Ward of "The Twin Loves" (IV.455-457). Likewise, it supports Charles Lane's very obvious authorship of "Millennial Church" (4.537-40), which corresponds to his previous articles on the Shaker community, while it totally discountenances Emerson's strange item in quotation marks, "W B G?" in the Harvard copy.

One last item which does not appear in the list of attributions requires passing mention and seems peculiarly appropriate in content for my final note on the annotations in the British Museum copy. In the January, 1842 issue of the Dial is a quatrain embedded in the last page of Emerson's "The Senses and the Soul" (II.374-379):

Perhaps a token of Emerson's 1833 visit to Edinburgh, when first he met Alexander Ireland, is his marginal annotation for the verses: "Old Tombstone / Melrose Abbey."