ANNA DICKINSON GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Collyer, Robert [March 16, 1871-June 9, 1880] & undatedChicago March 16th 1871 Dear daughter Anna This will introduce to you one of my best- friends, the Rev. John H. Heywood of Louisville. He wants to see you about going to that city. I hope you will go if you possibly can. I went last spring and had a royal time. They will bless you as much as you will bless them. I have now ascertained that we shall sail either on the Wednesday or Saturday between the second and third Sundays in May. I hope you will be able to arrange matters, and get that much needed rest and recreation, by going with us,without a doubt. As always Yours Robert Collyer per EmmaChicago April 4th 1871 Dear daughter Anna We sail on the 13th on the Abyssinia, the 13th of May I mean. Mother says we are to spend the whole month of May in England. We shall probably go to Switzerland about the first of July, if things are pretty quiet in France we shall want to go to Angers where my brother lives, by way of Rouen from Dieppe, if things are not quiet we shall go to Antwerp through Holland by sail mainly to Cologne, then take steamers up the Rhine to Wiesbaden across to Heidleberg then to the Interlachen and the region of the Jungfrau Alps. We shall probably spend a month on the Continent but shall not be eternally galloping round. Be back in Englandby the 1st of August and in my pulpit by the second Sunday in September. This is all nebulous however and we hold ourselves free from the moment we start to do just as we are all a mind to. I am only bound to preach in London on the 30th of May. With a lazy promise to Leeds, Manchester, and so on, which I shall keep if it suits me. How any and everything we can do to make it pleasant for our daughter, she must count on. I hope you will not lecture much because you need rest but I suppose you will have to lecture some because they will insist on it. If I can aid you I will do it gladly and proudly. Send letters up to the time you said to Dr. Williams Library No 8. Queen Square, London. Also come there to find where we are. Mr. Hunter the Librarian and Warden can tell you all about it. Let us know your plans as soon as you have made them before you sail if possible. I wrote Lucy Stone yesterday that I would try to be in New York on the 10th of May to make a speech at the womans meeting, that will give mother a couple of days rest before we go abroad, and I have volunteered the statement, that from the time we go out of our door to the time we come in again she shall have her own way in everything. Whither she goes, I will go, whither she lodges I will lodge, her people shall be my people and her God my God. Except She turn Calvinist or kisses the Popes toe. Always thine Robert Collyer With much love from EmmaChicago Dec 26, 1871 My dear friend Here's a wishin you a merry Christmas and please forgive me my trespasses but I was a good deal more than half sick when I got home that night and I think I had got a little sicker I might have been by this time shouting hallelujah which you know. Well as I do you would not like. And I will write to Anna but she cannot count on making her expenses as any part of them out of the trip. She must pay those as I did mineout of her own pocket. She can talk her way the second time not the first and I am glad of it because she does not want to talk next summer but to rest and recuperate thats what she wants not money and if she has no money so much the more it is a shame because there can be no reason for that girl of mine spending as much as she makes. Sincly yours Robert Collyer Chicago May 14th 1872 Dear Daughter, I could not attend to your cry while I was banged about on that weary wheel helping for my church but hasten now when I am home and hope I shall not be too late. The Wednesday steamer. The Cunard Line an outside cabin half way between the end and the engine on the north side sailing east is the most desirable place. Do not have an inside cabin or state room or one on the lower deck if they pay you to take it and do not go on any other line of steamer and if you can go on the Prussia and the Scotia. Lecture as little as possible. I will give you letters to the talks only on condition that this time your fight shy of lecturing. My last sight of poor Heatie Field was of woman haggard about lecturing in London and otherwheres and not able to make the thing go. Now promise me you will not lift a finger to get the thing started. Will onlyspeak in answer to an urgent invitation and then when every body in England wants to hear from you will quietly slip away then I shall be content otherwise I will only give you letters to the most stupid people in the three kingdoms. Let me hear when you are going now for you have got no preparation and I will go to work to fit all I can. Mother & self are to be in Boston the last week in May to come west the first week in June it would be a great temptation if you are still on this side to come by way of Philadelphia for the sake of bidding you good bye. Indeed lovingly yours, Papa Collyer PS As my letters go sometimes to the dead letter office and they would not know who Papa Collyer was I will stick in just here Robert Collyer Chicago July 18 1872 Dear My Daughter I do not like the way you have managed to cheat yourself out of your trip to Europe one bit but I suppose you know just what you can do and what you want to do and I will keep my scolding to myself I may venture to tell you what I hardly tell myself as yet that if I can squeeze $500 out of my labor this year & next summer my mother is still on the earth I shall take a month on the sea and a month on the land and slip over July & August and see her dear blessed face once more before she departsThen if I can be of any service to you it will be my pleasure and pride so to do. We should not have been able to call in Philadelphia if you had been home so don't fret about that. I had to go to [Cornell?] and had oh such a bad time mother stayed meanwhile at Auburn and then we came up to Niagara & had a very lovely visit there of a whole day and breakfasted at the Bayley in Detroit on our way up. Read the files of the [fortnightly?] review for hints on the labor [?]. It will tell your great deal and tell you where to look for a great deal more. I hope in you next [?} lecture if you take up this theme you will plead for domestic servants [among?] the rest they ought to be paid twice as well as they are handiwork eight hour. they are the hardest worked and the worst paid people in the land I shall have something to say about them in our talks & other talks The political situation is bad at the best and I don't know up to this day where I shall belong. I believe more in Greeley than in his party and in Grants party more than in Grant. I wish to heaven the Reform party as it is represented by [?] had been content to set the ball in motion and then to hide its time to himinstead of trying to win by a coalition with the evil elements that have struck hands with it then I should not have hesitated a moment as it is I am all at sea. I think the bit of fine manhood the new party has in it will have no more chance to hold its own than a small pure spring would to hold its own when it has run into the Missouri. I shall probably go into the Greeley movement in the end however because I think there is a better chance for the Country in breaking up the Washington ring than in keeping it whole but I am in a strait as [jet?] I frankly acknowledge. But I am always thine, Robert CollyerChicago Aug 24 1872 Dear Daughter Mine, Papa Collyer is as above slated and will be to the end of summer. It is the first time I ever spent vacation at home and I enjoy every moment. O-I-am-so- lazy- and it is so nice not to do a thing but just read and watch the house and church creep up sky ward. I suppose you will be drawn into this fight. I won't. If I was I suspect we should be found on opposite sides. I shall stump for nobody but I shall vote for Greeley. I stand close to Sumner every word he says is true and every inference he draws is true and he never did a nobler thing in his life than he is doing now The dear great good man. Of course I feel as so many do that Mr Greeley would not have been my choice if I had chosen but I felt in that way about Mr. Lincoln in 1860. Personally I like Mr Greeley very much and apart from my personal liking I think he is one of the best men on the American Continent and one of the ablest. He is also one of the most courageous men in the world. The purest in mind and hearttrue as steel to his convictions and he has convictions clear down from his white hat to his boots and there is not a bribe or gift on earth as in heaven that could buy him. I look for no millennium from his election. We are so beset with wileness and corruption on all hands that very much of a change for the better is almost impossible but the tide I truly believe will turn if he is elected while if things stay as they are it will be worse and worse. You know Mr Church of Valparaiso he told me the other day (confidentially) of a visit he made to the White House last winter he found Grant on the sofa he was said to be sick. He says if he was not drunk he does not know what a drunk is and I guess it is so more and more. The poor fellow is not holding his own he is going under I am sorry for my heart but we must have a sober man at least and so daughter dear you have now my mind about the election but whatever you do I shall believe to be done out of true heart a clear head and for Gods sake. You once made a speechin Library Hall from which I date in my nature the most perfect reverence for your genius and confidence in your whole purpose and life nothing can disturb so go ahead. I would rather hear you for Grant than [go to the] nineteen twentieth's of those who are or will be for Greeley. I only beg that for the sake of your great gift you will not let Mr Greeley stand about the woman question weigh with you more than it should. I do hope I may go see the old Mother God bless her next summer. If I was sure you were going I would try hard to take Emma. She is now up the Lake at Mackinac. She has had an offer didn't late it for the very strange reason that she didn't like him he has money and is a good fellow in his way but I back Emma every time. All well and hearty Annie very well. They are just going out riding. We have a basket of seckel pears but they aint ripe Thine always Robert CollyerChicago Nov 5-1874 Dear Daughter I do not feel quite certain about the trip to Europe but it is entirely probable that I shall go the first week in July and get back the first week in September it is all the time I can spare and as this is the last word in your note I suppose it is the only one you really want answered If then or before or after I can aid you and especially can aid you to get real well and strong againso that the work you have get to do in this World will not pull so hard on the very substance of your life pray let me know exactly how and where the help is to come in. Yes it was best to stay here. I suppose I shall die now right where I belong and that is in Chicago all well. Glad to hear through James that you are fairly well come and see us right soon. Your PapaChicago April 3 1878 My dear daughter Just now a lady was here who saw you a week ago and she told us you were still quite weak and poorly and in great trouble about your brother who is very sick. We are troubled for you and I felt I must write a line the instant we get the wedding out of the house and tell you how we always hold you in our hearts almost as if you were our very own Think and speak of you often. Wish to the great kind heavens we could see you home you with us to help cheer you a bit and see you grow strong and cheerful again as you were in the days when you glassed the whole bright world in your heart I trust my dear brave child you do meet all this pain with the old quiet quaker heart which rests still on God and wins at last through trusting and striving. Striving while that is of any use and then trusting when it seems as if the very world had come to an end I have heard far and wide of the strong and true friends you have in Elizabeth May God give them a grand benediction and may you feel you have strong and true friends everywhere east and west who stay just what they were when your path lay in pleasant lines but with a more tender and whole hearted love born as all such love is of your trouble There could be no truer joy for us my bonnie lass than that the doctor should say to you some day when you can attend to him there is no more to be done here you must break away from all this now and go a thousand miles from it find a bright cheery home there a while and so he made whole and then that you should say I will go and stay with the Collyers Dont you forget that this big house has a pleasant room on its sunniest side where you can nestle down all to yourself and lock the world out or have Hattie and Annie there when you want them and do just as you have a mind to. Remember that if there be a time when this seems of all things desirable. We are all your debtors and we all want to pay and we know we never can pay the whole but would like to offer something on account. We are fairly well poor Rob slowly mending myself rugged to all I know as granite Mother not well sometimes but strong just now and Emma very happy God bless you my daughter and be with you always. As always yours Robert CollyerChicago Oct 28 1878 Dear Daughter That letter never came the rascal must have stolen it and if it could be hoped of such a man that he would have the grace to feel its value it would be well worth stealing Well the other came and greeted me when I got home had been welcomed already by the whole family and was still more welcome I think to "the old man". I am very glad indeed to find you so much better so well and laying out plans of work May the inner and holy spirit bear you up on its wings and give you utterance wether you try the spoken or the written word. We are looking out for you and expect you to come and stay with us as long and as much as you can. We want to see you and have you feel you are at home in the old sweet way To hear all you will tell us of your plans for the future and if you lecture in Chicago to be on hand Come right here when you come to town it is not good for you to livein the great Hotels they are too lonesome Homes are better cosier warmer and more human Every body here is in good trim I think poor Rob a bit better the grandson a wonder of wonders there never was such a boy Sincerely Yours Robert CollyerChicago 2.18.79 My dear daughter Every word from you and about you is made much of by this family and the word from you especially. So when you only "scratch" on a card it is welcome and when you send a real letter more welcome and when you send a letter which tells your family you are looking up and feeling strong most welcome and that was the tenor of your last before this. We were greatly interested in the account the papers gave of your lecture in New York, by what we could make out it was a word fitly spoken, a good strong terse word, rippling here and there with an excellent humor, a sure sign of betterness no such humor is born of sickness dismay doubt disaster or demitry. I should come to hear that lecture you never gave one I did not come to hear, and I hope you may give it here before you are well and out of your girlhood aint that a nice remark now. First the papers say you have quit the stage then that the other man lied and they were taken in, then they hit the truth and then I smile a slow wise smile, I like the idea you have struck of what Cap'n Cuttle would call playing "gently"with that noble fellow. i don't quite like the idea of your still insisting on writing your own drama but shall eat humble pie when you take us all captive as I want you to still I do think the capitol old comedies are the true thing to try We are in rather rough weather but I have kept this for the last word. Mother is hardy ever well now. breaks down so easily dear heart and tries to keep up so bravely she has altered very much since you saw her. Can do but little about the house. Hattie keeps house mostly now and Rob is quite feeble has had a severe operation which has shaken his life to the centre poor fellow and I am full of trouble at times but plough out of it again because I must Mother and Rob are to go to the hot springs when they get well enough to travel I think they may be there in a month and in summer they will go up the Lake. I have to keep the house and church going so cannot be much with them, But we shall be mighty glad to see you when you come along west I wish you were here this day to bring a lot of sunshine The new grandson well there never was such a fellow before and Emma is well and when she is especially bound to take us all captive wears your gold beads Ever yours Robert Collyer139 East 39th St. New York June 9th 1880 My dear Daughter We are glad for you and proud and want to see and hear you either in a private or a public reading just as you like Mother and the chicks go to Nantucket next week to stay all summer I guess we get away on Tuesday evening after the Booth breakfast I have to attend. or it may be Wednesday I come back and Hattie keeps house for me until July then she goes west for the summer Emma is here with her two sons, she also goes to Nantucket If you want to see them you will have to come this week or go there I do not know that you are east yet but shall hope to hear from you when you do get "home" Yours always, Robert Collyer Sherman House Chicago, ___186 My dear daughter Do not find you in, worse luck. Now I shall have to introduce you I presume and hope so I will be here first exactly at seven. Also the old Lady to say how do and see you to lecture and back if you aint got no better escort Your Father Collyer about 3 pmR CollyerMy dear child My heart leapt with delight when I heard yesterday how you were to speak to us tonight I could not have had the cheek to ask you because you are so tired As it has turned you see I am not to blame Somehow my wife and the rest of you have done it. You will be over I hope first as soon as ever you can your Papa [*s ????*]My dear friend I cannot thank you now but I will tommoro - My Missie teacher is her and waiting for me - Father home this A. M. Much love from all. Emma Collyer