From The Watchman of the Tower, by Hans Christian Anderson

“ Do you know what can be found in a glass? asked Ole, “Health, happiness, and joy! But it can also contain harm and bitter misery. As one counts the glasses, of course, one has to take into account what’s in them and who is drinking them.

“The first glass contains health. It has a healing power, an herb, within it. Pick it and it will grow.

“Take the second glass. In that is hidden a little bird that sings an innocent song, and man listens to it and agrees: Life is beautiful! Let us not be downhearted, but live!

“The third glass contains a little winged child, half angel, half pixy. He does not tease maliciously, but is filled with fun. He climbs into our ears and whispers amusing thoughts and warms our hearts so that we feel young and gay and become witty and amusing, even according to the judgement of our friends.

“The fourth glass has only an exclamation point in it, or perhaps a question mark. This is the point beyond which sense and intelligence never go.

“After you have drunk the fifth glass, then you either weep over yourself or you become sentimental. Prince Carnival jumps from the glass and draws you into a dance, and you forget your own dignity, if you ever had any. You forget more than you should, more than it is good for you to forget. All is song, music, and noise. The masked ones whirl you along. The Devil’s daughters, in silk dresses, with their long hair and beautiful legs, join the dance. And you—can you tear yourself away?

“In the sixth glass sits the Devil himself. He is a little well-dressed man, most charming and pleasant. He understands everything you say. He even brings a lamp to light your way—not to your home, but to his. There is an old legend about a saint who was ordered to experience one of the seven deadly sins. He decided that drunkenness was the least of them. But as soon as he got drunk, then he committed the other six sins. In the sixth glass the Devil and man mix blood; in this thrives everything evil within us, and it grows like the sprout of a mustard seed until it becomes a tree so large that it shades our whole world. Then we are fit for nothing but to be put back into the oven and melted down again.”