These two sisters, Mrs. Worden and Mrs. Seward, daughters of Judge Miller, an influential man, were women of culture and remarkable natural intelligence, and interested in all progressive ideas.  They had rare common sense and independence of character, great simplicity of manner, and were wholly indifferent to the little arts of the toilet.

I was often told by fashionable women that they objected to the woman’s rights movement because of the publicity of a convention, the immodesty of speaking from a platform, and the trial of seeing one’s name in the papers.  Several ladies made such remarks to me one day, as a bevy of us were sitting together in one of the fashionable hotels in Newport.  We were holding a convention there at that time, and some of them had been present at one of the sessions.  “Really,” said I, “ladies, you surprise me; our conventions are not as public as the ballroom where I saw you all dancing last night.  As to modesty, it may be a question, in many minds, whether it is less modest to speak words of soberness and truth, plainly dressed on a platform, than gorgeously arrayed, with bare arms and shoulders, to waltz in the arms of strange gentlemen.  And as to the press, I noticed you all reading, in this morning’s papers, with evident satisfaction, the personal compliments and full descriptions of your dresses at the last ball.  I presume that any one of you would have felt slighted if your name had not been mentioned in the general description.  When my name is mentioned, it is in connection with some great reform movement.  Thus we all suffer or enjoy the same publicity—­we are alike ridiculed.  Wise men pity and ridicule you, and fools pity and ridicule me—­you as the victims of folly and fashion, me as the representative of many of the disagreeable ‘isms’ of the age, as they choose to style liberal opinions.  It is amusing, in analyzing prejudices, to see on what slender foundation they rest.”  And the ladies around me were so completely cornered that no one attempted an answer.

I remember being at a party at Secretary Seward’s home, at Auburn, one evening, when Mr. Burlingame, special ambassador from China to the United States, with a Chinese delegation, were among the guests.  As soon as the dancing commenced, and young ladies and gentlemen, locked in each other’s arms, began to whirl in the giddy waltz, these Chinese gentlemen were so shocked that they covered their faces with their fans, occasionally peeping out each side and expressing their surprise to each other.  They thought us the most immodest women on the face of the earth.  Modesty and taste are questions of latitude and education; the more people know,—­the more their ideas are expanded by travel, experience, and observation,—­the less easily they are shocked.  The narrowness and bigotry of women are the result of their circumscribed sphere of thought and action.