A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world.

In this remark, Adams pushes back against a puritanical disdain for “frippery” (decorative clothing or fashionable extras) by framing a modest degree of adornment as socially functional rather than morally suspect. The point is pragmatic: appearance operates as a kind of public language, and refusing all ornament can mark one as willfully outside communal norms. Adams’s phrasing suggests a balance—she does not celebrate extravagance, but argues that some attention to dress helps one move in society without needless friction. Read in the context of women’s constrained avenues for influence, the line also hints at how presentation could be one of the few available tools for navigating status, credibility, and belonging.