You cannot hide any secret. If the artist succor his flagging spirits by opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as the effect of opium or wine. If you make a picture or a statue, it sets the beholder in that state of mind you had when you made it. If you spend for show, on building, or gardening, or on pictures, or on equipages, it will so appear. We are all physiognomists and penetrators of character, and things themselves are detective.
I was sitting on my own in a restaurant, when I saw a beautiful woman at another table. I sent her a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu. She sent me a note:
"I will not touch a drop of this wine unless you can assure me that you have seven inches in your pants." So I wrote back: "Give me the wine. As gorgeous as you are, I'm not cutting off three inches for anyone.
A man cannot make him laugh; but that's no marvel; he drinks no wine.... If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.
I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I see not beyond death. Let me live while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less than an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
The castled crag of Drachenfels, Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine, And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scatter'd cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them shine.
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou has no name to be known by, let us call thee devil....O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!