Each circle and section, each rank and class, has its respective customs and observances, to which conformity is required at the risk of being tabooed.

Some are immured within a bastile of fashion, others of custom, others of opinion; and few there are who have the courage to think outside their sect, to act outside their party, and to step out into the free air of individual thought and action.
We dress, and eat, and follow fashion, though it may be at the risk of debt, ruin, and misery; living not so much according to our means, as according to the superstitious observances of our class.

Though we may speak contemptuously of the Indians who flatten their heads, and of the Chinese who cramp their toes, we have only to look at the deformities of fashion amongst ourselves, to see that the reign of "Mrs.Grundy" is universal.
But moral cowardice is exhibited quite as much in public as in private life.

Snobbism is not confined to the toadying of the rich, but is quite as often displayed in the toadying of the poor.

Formerly, sycophancy showed itself in not daring to speak the truth to those in high places; but in these days it rather shows itself in not daring to speak the truth to those in low places.