A good-looking piece of scenery anywhere delights the eye and elevates the spirits. Some of us, crude creatures that we are, are merely excited; finer souls draw ethical and spiritual nutrients from the sight.

Hospitality, or flinging wide the door to friends and wayfarers alike, was once important, back in a world without motels or safety nets, where a friend might find his castle burnt down or a wayfarer find bandits on his trail.

In a proper pub everyone there is potentially, if not a lifelong friend, at least someone to lure into an argument about foreign policy or the Red Sox.

Single life should be experimental in nature and open to accidents. Some accidents are happy ones.

Our Revolution was born and raised in taverns.

Almost any dog thinks almost any human is the Great Spirit, the Primal Creator, and the Universal Force Behind the Sun and Tides. What human can resist?

Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending.