Fortunately for the influence of this group they inherited the sound qualities of Puritan character. They therefore did not lay themselves open to attack on account of any wild vagaries of conduct. Emerson was a saint, Thoreau an ascetic, Bronson Alcott a pure philosopher, Theodore Parker a great preacher and reformer, Margaret Fuller a high-minded woman of letters, and the scores of their associates just as devoted to a high religious ideal as any equal number of the early Pilgrims. Two undertakings chiefly focused the group activity of the Transcendentalists. The first of these was the _Dial_, a quarterly publication which ran for sixteen numbers, 1840-1844. The so-called Transcendental Club, an informal group of kindred spirits, came toward the end of the thirties to the point where they felt the need of an "organ" of their own. After much discussion they undertook the publication of this journal of one hundred and twenty-eight pages to an issue. For the first two years it was under the editorship of Margaret Fuller. When her strength failed under this extra voluntary task, Emerson, with the help of Thoreau, took charge for the remaining two years. Its paid circulation was very small, never reaching two hundred and fifty, and finally, when in the hands of its third set of publishers, it had to be discontinued, Emerson personally meeting the final small deficit. It contained chiefly essays of a philosophical nature, but included in every issue a rather rare body of verse. The essays reflected and expounded German thought and literature and oriental thought, and discussed problems of art, literature, and philosophy. The section given to critical reviews is extremely interesting for its quick response to the new writings which later years have proved and accepted. Possibly the nearest analogy of to-day to the old _Dial_ is the _Hibbert Journal_,--the first journal of its kind to achieve an international circulation and self-support. _The Dial_ is in a way the literary journal or diary of the Transcendental Movement in America from 1840 to 1844.