"I have probably not taught you anything new. Wine is known to all; it is loved by all. When there is a true philosopher-physician, something rarely seen, he will be able to conduct a powerful study on wine, a kind of dual psychology in which wine and man are the two terms. He will explain how and why certain drinks have the ability to greatly enhance the personality of the thinking being and to create, so to speak, a third person, a mystical operation in which natural man and wine, the animal god and the plant god, play the roles of the Father and the Son in the Trinity; they engender a Holy Spirit, who is the superior man, who also proceeds from both. (...)
An unknown ancient author said: "Nothing equals the joy of the man who drinks, except the joy of wine being drunk. " Indeed, wine plays such an intimate role in the life of humanity that I would not be surprised if, seduced by a pantheistic idea, some reasonable minds attributed a kind of personality to it. Wine and man strike me as two friendly wrestlers, constantly fighting, constantly reconciling. The vanquished always embraces the victor. There are nasty drunkards; they are naturally nasty people. The bad man becomes execrable, just as the good man becomes excellent."
Artificial Paradises, [of wine and hashish], 1860
Charles Baudelaire
