Ask the Scholar

Susan Taber writes to Debora Weston in regards to explaining her silence due to the death of "the little darling" from a "predisposition to brain disease and after many alternatives of hope and fear, dropsy of the head carried her off after a few days of intense suffering that it is even now almost agony to recall." She expresses indignation at the conduct of N[athaniel]. Colver. She reflects that the spread of abolitionist doctrines has unveiled the rotten foundations of many institutions. She is looking for a copy of the "pastoral letter." She comments on the course of lectures given by the poet Richard H. Dana as "far more likely to do harm than good" and she was astonished at the "many weak things that were dealt out to us" in his lecture on woman, the tone of which "was entirely at variance with my Quaker views." The women's anti-slavery society was dissolved at its annual meeting. The young men altered the name of their society prior to the meeting, which as it stands includes all classes and both men and women. A sewing circle will meet as before. She asks when she will see Debora in New Bedford again.