No outward doors of a man's house can in general be broken open
to execute any civil process; though read more

No outward doors of a man's house can in general be broken open
to execute any civil process; though in criminal cases the public
safety supersedes the private.

The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.

The house is a castle which the King cannot enter.

There's nothing half so pleasant as coming home again.

There's nothing half so pleasant as coming home again.

When the hornet hangs in the holly hock,
And the brown bee drones i' the rose,
And read more

When the hornet hangs in the holly hock,
And the brown bee drones i' the rose,
And the west is a red-streaked four-o'clock,
And summer is near its close--
It's--Oh, for the gate, and the locust lane;
And dusk, and dew, and home again!

My whinstone house my castle is,
I have my own four walls.

My whinstone house my castle is,
I have my own four walls.

"Home" is any four walls that enclose the right person.

"Home" is any four walls that enclose the right person.

There's nobody at home
But Jumping Joan,
And father and mother and I.

There's nobody at home
But Jumping Joan,
And father and mother and I.

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home

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.