Stone:  “I know what you must suffer in consenting to bow again to the tyranny of fashion, but I know also what you suffer among fashionable people in wearing the short dress; and so, not for the sake of the cause, nor for any sake but your own, take it off!  We put it on for greater freedom, but what is physical freedom compared with mental bondage?” In agony of spirit as to whether the cause was helped or hindered by wearing it, and ready to put aside all personal feeling in the matter, Miss Anthony appealed to Lucy Stone, who answered: 

Now, Susan, it is all fudge for anybody to pretend that a cause which deserves to live is impeded by the length of your skirt.  I know, from having tried through half the Union, that audiences listen and assent just as well to one who speaks truth in a short as in a long dress; but I am annoyed to death by people who recognize me by my clothes, and when I travel get a seat by me and bore me for a whole day with the stupidest stuff in the world.  Then again, when I go to each new city a horde of boys pursue me and destroy all comfort.  I have bought a nice new dress, which I have had a month, and it is not made because I can’t decide whether to make it long or short.  Not that I think any cause will suffer, but simply to save myself a great deal of annoyance and not feel when I am a guest in a family that they are mortified if other persons happen to come in.  I was at Lucretia Mott’s a few weeks ago, and her daughters took up a regular labor with me to make me abandon the dress.  They said they would not go in the street with me, and when Grace Greenwood called and others like her, I think it would have been a real relief to them if I had not been there.  James and Lucretia defended me bravely.

This was received by Miss Anthony while at the Albany convention, and she wrote: 

Your letter caused a bursting of the floods, long pent up, and after a good cry I went straight to Mrs. Stanton and read it to her.  She has had a most bitter experience in the short dress, and says she now feels a mental freedom among her friends that she has not known for two years past.  If Lucy Stone, with all her power of eloquence, her loveliness of character, who wins all that hear the sound of her voice, can not bear the martyrdom of the dress, who can?  Mrs. Stanton’s parting words were, “Let the hem out of your dress to-day, before to-morrow night’s meeting.”  I have not obeyed her but have been in the streets and printing offices all day long, had rude, vulgar men stare me out of countenance and heard them say as I opened the door, “There comes my Bloomer!” O, hated name!  I have been compelled to attend to all the business here, as at Rochester.  There every one knew me, knew my father and brother, and treated me accordingly, but here I am known only as one of the women who ape men—­coarse brutal men!  Oh, I can not, can not bear it any longer.

To this Lucy Stone replied: