Careful Words

tavern (n.)

And this I know: whether the one True Light

Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me quite,

One Flash of It within the Tavern caught

Better than in the Temple lost outright.

Omar Khayyam (1048-1131): Rubáiyát. Stanza lxxvii.

  There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. iii. 1776.