The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.

The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.

Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes read more

Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes on you. A certain set of buildings, a glimpsed, smudged window-view across a schoolyard, a musty aroma sniffed behind a garage when you were a child, all of which come crowding in upon your latter-day senses -- those are pungent things and vivid, even consoling. But to me they are also inert and nostalgic and unlikely to connect you to the real, to that essence art can sometimes achieve, which is permanence.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to read more

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

Christmas... is not an external event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart.

Christmas... is not an external event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart.

And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a
lodge in a garden read more

And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a
lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

I've read in many a novel, that unless they've souls that
grovel--
Folks prefer in fact a hovel read more

I've read in many a novel, that unless they've souls that
grovel--
Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls.

Where thou art, that is home.

Where thou art, that is home.

The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest read more

The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.