Anna Dickinson General Correspondence Tyler Moses Coit April 29, 1872 June 30, 1872 October 2, 1872 } 3 lettersAnn Arbor 2 October, 1872 My Dear Miss Dickinson: I have just seen Mr Spaulding, the Pres. of the Students Lecture Association. He is personally very anxious to secure you for their course; & he tells me that among all his colleagues, & among the students generally, your name has lost none of itswitchery.But the managers of the course have been subjected to terrific criticism; & for the past year have been smitten by the notion that they must run after new goddesses as well as new gods. They are fretting upon the list. This year the names of persons who (excepting Parsons) have never been here before. The list is not yet finished; & Mr. Spaulding still hopes that he can persuade his colleagues to apply to you in time to obtain the promise of your coming. My own opinion is that they will not fill up the list until the X'mas holidays; & that if you can leave a date open, on your visit to this state in March, our boys will be tickled half to death to get it. For myself & mine, I can only say that the tickling will kill us entirely; but that is a death we like to die. I have heard it mentionedin the streets that if the students don't secure you immediately, the Ladies Association will try to do it. Now upon this business, I implore you to take the advice a wise & aged man --to wit, the subscribed; which is to have nothing to do with any such place, for it wd result in annoyance & mortification to you. She is an absolute monopoly in the lecturn traffic law; and every attempt at competing with the Students here (5) is a dead & a d —d failure. Yourself, Phillips, Tilton, all of the most attractive lecturers who came west, would have a beggarly audience here, unless engaged by the Association. I don't want to see you imposed upon my any such operation; & I lay my apostolic commands upon you. I enjoin you, - with my august authority, I positively prohibit you from entering into thattrap. The next time you speak here, it must be under the old auspices which will be in your case triumphant. Leav it with me, & I will touch the right springs & manage it, if any body can. How is that for high=modesty? Well, in the hurrygraphy I have only room to say that my wife joins me in most cordial greetings. She has been quite ill this summer, & is now by no means well. my little boy, too, has been very sick ; & I have been nursing him, M.C. Tyler Isn't our Theodore coming up grandly?Ann Arbor, Mich. April 29, 1872 My dear Miss Dickinson: It is a pity that all the fine letters I have lately written to you (with my mind's pen, Horatio) have not reached you: but there is always in this world, I fear, this confounded chasm between the ideal & the actual. I feel myself greatly honoredthat you should think me worthy of giving you a letter of introduction to any of my old friends in England. I am sure that you will be run [down?] with letters, & over ther with the crowds of people who will want To [you] know you; & i send you this accompanying letter to that grand man Dr Garth Wilkinson, with the understanding that you need not feel obliged to present it, after you get ther, if you find that you have not time or inclination. But I'll warrant that you'll not meet a nobler type of man than he stands for. Emerson, on English Traits, speaks of him as having "brought to metaphysics & to physiology a native vigor, with a catholic perception of relations, equal to the highest attempts, & a rhetoric like the armory of the invincible knights of old."I envy you the great joy that is in store for you in going to dear old England; & I should like to be around in the near neighborhood, to catch some of the beams of your exhilaration. Heaven bless you, & give you a good romp, & bring you back in good season & in good condition next fall. My warm love to the Conway's ; & my regards to Geo. Smalley - if you can remember this! (5) really, I thought Aggie Day was playing a wicked hoax on me, her venerable pedagogue, when the other day she assured me that you had expressed a willingness to accept my photograph. My Eyes! She swore it was true - she swore it with several fat round glib Sophomoric oaths : but then what dependence can one place on a Sophomore! Thereis not any telling or guessing what wicked prank they may be up to for bringing to humiliation their innocent instructors. I do hope it's true! I'm going to send my photograph, even if Aggie is lying in her throat, & even if you don't want it. Because I want to trap you into the necessity of sending me yours. Please. let me have it before you sail, + I'll tie it around my neck as a charm to keep sea demons quiet & pacific while you travel over their realms. Everybody who has heard you this year, testifies that your speeches are better now than ever before, & I expect that when you get home again your "level best" will be several yards higher yet. So mote it be. That you may be saved to enjoy a dry death, is the tenderblessing & farewell of Your truly rival, M.C. Tyler [*Divine People*]Ann Arbor 30 June, 1872 Mademoiselle: I like the way you began your letter to me - omitting all such stiff conventionalisms as usually preface the letters which fair damsels write to old gentlemen. I like it, because it leaves my imagination to revel in the address [*I am happy to inform you that the sophomore, Aggie Day, managed to pass her examinations with me this time; but it was a tight squeeze. Won't you come and pass them too in the same way?*]you would have used, if you had not been too timid. That photograph of thyself is, like thyself, magnifique. I am as proud as a couple of Lucifers to have it; & when I get through bragging about it to my friends, I'm going to put it up on a golden throne in my Temple of Bright Women, i.e. my feminine fotograph album, or, if you prefer, my private portrait gallery. It's all right about England. Don't go till you get ready; & how could you go in campaign year? I'm not much waked up in politics yet. Perhaps, I'm waiting to be electrified by your tremendous Greeley speech -- that one whichwhich you are working at now. Ah! I am glad that Theodore's stock has risen again- never, I trust, to go down again! How his Golden Age does coruscate & flame with eloquence & wit! Now, I'm not such a goose as to suppose that you have [to] time to be writing epistles to a country schoolmaster like me; & tho' I may be sorry, I shall not be mad, if you waiting till you answer this scrawl in person. Admiringly thine, M.C. Tyler [*Mrs Tyler sends her most cordial greeting.*] your whole street; but for "wild honey" I should need to stop at 1710 - & it would be very wild honey, too!P.S. I've just been musing over the heading of your letter, which gives the street & number of your Philadelphia home; & I thought that if I were John the Baptist (& for once I wish I were) I should know just where to go for my appropriate food. For "locusts", there isyour whole street ; but for "wild honey" I should need to stop at 1710 - & it would be very wild honey, too!