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.