The Pleasant Aspects of the Current Scarcity

Just as they fear misfortune itself, and perhaps might not have the strength to endure it, they find a kind of pleasure in playing a game with misfortune in their imagination, under various forms they give to it themselves; a game that frightens them, and yet, as it seems, brings them comfort. And if it is true, as those who know human nature claim, that people prefer to talk about what they do not have—what they have therefore seen not in the clear daylight of reality, but in the magical light of fantasy—then this is why the drinkers of water and French wine were the most enthusiastic Rhine wine singers original: "Rheinwein-Sänger"*;

The late C. Rudolphi, while living in Hamburg, once received a gift of several bottles of exquisite old Rhine wine. During his first visit from Claudius, the Rhine wine singer was to be treated with this delicious good. He took a glass, tasted it, twisted his mouth, and asked for some sugar to make the sour wine, as he called it, palatable! So little did the singer know in reality what had inspired the idea of his magnificent Rhine wine song.