My present post amounts to about 700 thaler, and when there are rather more funerals than usual, the fees rise in proportion; but when a healthy wind blows, they fall accordingly...
-Johann Sebastian Bach, Letter to Georg Erdmann, 1732, on his post as Cantor of Leipzig; in The Bach Reader: A Life of J. S. Bach in Letters and Documents, by Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, 1945.