manner nourishment only
awakens in us our powers and our growth, but does not produce them; it
gives the possibility, but not the thing, and man sprouts out of
himself like a plant. It is a stupid notion to believe that wine
produces immediately of itself all the operations which we ascribe to
it; no, as I was saying, its scent and breath only awaken the qualities
which are dormant in us. Now rush forth powers, feelings and
transports, when they are steeped in its waves. Do you suppose then
that throughout the whole range of art and science the case is
otherwise? I need not propound anew the old Platonic idea. Raphael and
Correggio and Titian do but rouse my own self that slumbers in
forgetfulness, and though the greatest genius, the deepest feeling of
art, cannot, with all their imagination, invent the images which are
presented to them by the great masters, yet these works themselves do
but awaken old reminiscences. Hence too the thirst after new
intellectual enjoyments, which else would not be commendable; hence the
wish to discover the unknown, to produce the original, which otherwise
were senseless. For we have a presentiment of the infinity of knowledge
within us, that prophetic mirror of eternity, and of what this eternity
may become to us, an incessant increase of knowledge, that collects
itself in the centre of a celestial tranquillity, and hence extends to
new regions. And for this very reason, my dear brother topers, there
must be a multitude and a variety of wines."

"And which do you prefer?" asked Dietrich. "Is there not in this as in
other things, the classical and perfect, the modern and trivial, the
mannered and affected, the lovely old and simply plain, the hearty and
the emptily bombastic?"

"Youngster," said the old man, "this question is too complicated: it
pre-supposes immense experience, historical survey, rejection of
prejudice, and a taste matured in all directions, one that can only be
fixed and freed by length of years, continued labour and indefatigable
study, as well as the instruments required for them, which are not in
every man's hands. A few encyclopedical remarks will suffice. Almost
every wine has its good qualities, almost all deserve to be known. If
in our country the Neckar exists scarcely for any purpose but to quench
the thirst, the Wuerzburger now rises to the character of a generous
wine, and the various superior sorts of Rhenish do not admit of being
hastily characterized. Y