For a long time, as you know, I have felt this in regard to our social wine-drinking customs; and if I could have had my way, there would have been one large party of the season at which neither man nor woman could taste wine." "I know," replied Mr.Birtwell.

"But I didn't choose to make myself a laughing-stock.

If we are in society, we must do as society does.
Individuals are not responsible for social usages.

They take things as they find them, going with the current, and leaving society to settle for itself its code of laws and customs.

If we don't like these laws and customs, we are free to drift out of the current.