He had scarcely gone a short league, when Fortune, that was conducting his affairs from good to better, discovered to him the road, where he also espied an Inn. Sancho positively maintained it was an Inn, and his master that it was a castle; and the dispute lasted so long that they arrived there before it was determined.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
Souls of poets dead and gone,Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
A region of repose it seems,A place of slumber and of dreams.
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung.
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?
The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day:To gain the timely inn.
You may go to Carlisle's and to Almanac's too;And how civil to Folks he ne'er saw in his Life.
He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern!—holy, because no carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and miraculous, because of the spits, which themselves turn round and round!
Now musing o'er the changing sceneHopes better times, and sips his ale.
Alone the varying road of life,Find in an Inn a place of rest.
Where'er his fancy bids him roam,Where on each face he sees a smile?
Where you have friends you should not go to inns.
The atmosphereSeem full of welcomes.
Whoe'er has travel'd life's dull round, The warmest welcome, at an inn.
What care if the dayAt the Inn of the Silver Moon.