Foyer

“ A house whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest, and you cannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some of its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there -- in solitary confinement. ”

“ Ah, this room!—this dear, untidy, unfashionable parlor! It is the citadel of the household, the very heart of the home.
None can deny the influence which childhood’s home has over them, even unto their hoary-hairs; the memory of a happy, comfortable one is better than an inheritance. The girls and boys who leave it have a positive ideal to realize. ”

“ I live in a house whose arrangements seem to me strange, old, and dreamy. In the heart of a great city I am as still as if in a convent; in the burning heats of summer our rooms are shadowy and cool as a cave. My time is all my own. I may at will lie on a sofa, and dreamily watch the play of the leaves and flowers, in the little garden into which my room opens; or I may go into the parlor adjoining, whence I hear the quick voices of my beautiful and vivacious young friends. ”

“ In a beautiful village, in one of the farther western states, two men were discussing the possible future of the home and of family life. Sitting in the brilliant moonlight, looking through the leafy shades, watching the lights of a score of homes, each surrounded by lawn and shade trees, each with its group on the front porch, where vines trailed and flowers bloomed, listening to the hum of conversation and the strains of music in one home and another, it seemed, to at least one of these men, that this type of living could hardly pass away. ”

“ From the look of these typically English, cheerful, middle-class, not-too-well-off little homes you'd know just the sort of people who live in them. The plump, house-keeping mother, the season-ticket father, the tennis-playing sons, the girls in dainty blouses, who put their little newly whitened shoes to dry on the bathroom window-sill, and who call laughing remarks to each other out of the window. ”

“ We who speak glibly of the need of love for our neighbours as being before that for ourselves, would we share a bed, a room, or give hospitality to strangers even in our kitchens, after they had awakened us in the middle of the night by slinging snowballs at our bedroom windows? ”

“ The quiet unpretending house, with its exquisite neatness and its abundance of books, the family life, with the heart-happiness underneath, and the gentle trust and courtesy on the surface, the little touches of austerity which betrayed themselves here and there in the household ways—all these surroundings stole into the lad’s imagination, touched in him responsive fibres of taste and feeling. ”

“ I always lived in a flat, John, and there was always a family above and a family below, and it frightens me to think I am in a house where there is no family above me, and not even a janitor's family below me. ”

“ IN AN extravagantly furnished apartment of a fine-looking mansion in the heart of the city, sits a family group, consisting of a father, mother, two sons, and one daughter. They are far from exhibiting in their countenances that contentment of mind which is a "continual feast," and yet something has transpired that gives them, for the time being, an unusual degree of pleasurable emotion. ”

“ The owner, a whimsical man, a lonely and eccentric bachelor of the type that always brightens English novels, would invite them in, make Father his steward and Mother his lady housekeeper. There would be a mystery in the house—a walled-off room, a sound of voices at night in dark corridors where no voices could possibly be, a hidden tragedy, and at last Father and Mother would lift the burden from the place, and end their days in the rose-covered dower-house.... ”

“ This life, denied all larger grouping, finds its sole joy in fierce deep love of family and home. This home a room, a low and narrow room, unwholesome, dark, incredibly filled up, yet overflowing most with love. ”

“ Are they subordinated to a really intelligent sense of what a living-room should be? Or are they merely a crowd, a litter, things flung into the room pell-mell by a house-mistress bent on securing for her parlour-maid a silly hour's dusting every day of objects—not of virtue—and for herself the recognition by her neighbours that she has money enough to throw away in making her living-room a silly imitation of a shop for bric-a-brac. ”

“ The home of my childhood was bare, bare of such things. Neither cubes nor cylinders were there that I remember, nor thermatic tests, nor color-tablets, nor quadrilateral prisms; and yet—
What was there of especial value? There was, first of all, the household. "The household," to quote Emerson further, "is a school of power. There within the door learn the tragi-comedy of human life. Here is the sincere thing, the wondrous composition for which day and night go round. ”

“ A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and
master,
With doors that none but the wind ever
closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses. ”

“ Husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, sons and mothers, lovers and sweethearts, meet after the week whose separating days have seemed like weeks, and visit the houses whose pierced walls and roofs, that let the white-hot sunshine in through many jagged holes, may one day, so they whisper, holding one another closely, shelter them again in peace. Home has become a sweet word, even to those who thought little of home before. ”

“ About the house lingers a sense of unrest, of expectation, of transientness, even of anxiety and apprehension. The halls are a labyrinth. Without a guide, you wander like a lost soul in a Sam Loyd puzzle. ”

“ Even rooms furnished without taste often become charming from this one grace, that they seem to let you into the home life and home current. You seem to understand in a moment that you are taken into the family, and are moving in its inner circles, and not revolving at a distance in some outer court of the gentiles. ”

“ The comfortable old house in the village street, all the rooms with blazing fires, and the kitchen with the flagged, uneven floor, hot and simmering with good things cooking, and the snow outside, and the horses stamping in the cold, frosty air, and the guests coming in laughing and talking. ”

“ There is something about the word Home, which in itself is pleasant. How delightful is it to him upon whose locks have fallen the snows of many winters, and whose brow has been furrowed by the hand of time, to look back to the home and friends of his childhood! Every thing about the old homestead is interesting to him. Here, surrounded by kind friends and dear relatives, he spent the happiest hours of his life. Every spot has some attraction. ”

“ But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet. ”

“ That house—I know one of its founders, and I know what I’m talking about—is like an enormous family, where children are born, year after year, grow up, and take their places in life according to their quality and merit. ”

“ Sixty separate groups of dear home people were being vividly pictured in that one great room, sixty different houses were suddenly mentally erected within that house. Ever and ever so many beloved voices were imagined right in among the murmuring real voices of the friends about them. ”

“ The old house, standing a dozen yards from the roadside, is picturesque with the contrivances of neglect and decay. Through a door hanging loose upon its hinges the passer-by may behold the evidences of loneliness and gloom,—the very embodiment of desolation,—a void, a silence, that is almost portentous. ”

“ The welcome cheer of the open fire, which graced and beautified even the humblest room, is lost forever with the close gatherings of the family, the household occupations, the homespun industries which formed and imprinted in the mind of every child the picture of a home. ”

“ That dwelling in which pleasure and happiness now reign, shall soon echo with the sobs and lamentations of those who have parted with perhaps a father, a mother, a fond sister, or a loving brother. He who to-day resides in the costliest mansion, may to-morrow be an inhabitant of a hovel. ”

“ Domesticity asserts its command, by your order, in the aspect of every cottage in your park-like nest. Homely comfort radiates from the hearths and the faces of all who live under your delightful rule. ”

“ Each house, perfumed like a parterre of flowers, opens its doors, and, during the live long day, it is between friends and acquaintance a series of happy smiles, and a mutual exchange of nosegays and hearty shaking of hands. ”

“ The soul flutters about the cottage in the shape of a fly, sitting down, from time to time, upon the stove and witnessing the lamentations of the mourners as well as the preparations for the funeral; and in the courtyard it hovers around as a bird. ”

“ The Story of the Home.—Marriage is the gateway of the home; the home is the shelter of the family. It is the cradle of children, the nursery of mutual affection, and the training-school for citizenship in the community. The physical comfort of its inmates depends upon the house and its furnishings, but fondness for the home develops only in an atmosphere of good-will and kindness. ”

“ In the sitting-room, where the family gathers for the evening, and where some members of the household spend a good part of each day, put all the comfort you can. Let it be one of the largest and brightest rooms in the house. ”

“ Where all the people staid is a mystery. In our little cottage the family slept in the woodshed, while on the night preceding the play, some of their friends slept on the floor of the living room. A full description of the variety of accommodations would fill a volume. Some of our friends reported no sheet at all upon their beds; others slept on pillows of hay, while others again boasted two sheets and a lounge, with preserves and cake for supper. ”

“ All, or nearly all, of the work of the home seems to be done by people from the outside—from the cleaning of the windows to the education of the children. The modern home is but a fireside around which one hardly sees the family gathered for intimate talk. ”

“ In the home the family gets up plenty early enough, songs and jokes, kisses and love pats are found, the family is on time, and there is happiness all around.
Homes are sweet, because love is present. Houses built by gold are just hotels. ”

“ The keeping-room of the family is remarkable for its large square window, built out so as to afford a delightful retreat for reading or working in the summer, or whenever it is not too cold to sit away from the fireplace. ”

“ And in the fullest connotation of the word, it is a home, with old chairs to fit you, bright cretonnes at the windows, and friendly things about you to rest your eyes upon—the sort of a home that a lad like Charles Carroll the Ninth, who isn’t much interested in ancestors, likes to take refuge in when strangers grow inquisitive. ”

“ I have been into some so-called homes, composed of two small rooms, in one of which father and mother, boys and girls growing up into manhood and womanhood, were obliged to sleep in the one room, even in the one bed. ”

“ I, in my lecture-hall—'may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.' In our 'Father's house are many mansions.' The room that we spend most of our lives in, each of us, at our tasks or our work-tables may be in our Father's house, too ”

“ You see, this house has only got four reception-rooms and eight bedrooms, and all the washing’s done at home, and all the dressmaking, and there’s a good deal of entertaining, mostly when you’re not there, and everything has to be right up to the mark. ”

“ The other is the kind that appears best at home, graceful in the parlor, captivating in social intercourse, useful in the sick chamber as in the dining-room, and cheerful in all the precincts of home. They differ widely in character. One is often the family torment ”

“ I love a well-ordered house and table, rooms pleasantly arranged and lighted, and decorated with flowers, hospitable attentions to guests, and all the other pleasant cares of the mistress of a family. ”

“ Every member of the family, from the youngest to the oldest, bears a hand, shut in the qualmy rooms, where meals are cooked and clothing washed and dried besides, the livelong day. It is not unusual to find a dozen persons--men women, and children--at work in a single small room. ”

“ Each homestead consists of one room, large enough to contain the whole family. The floor is of earth, or perhaps covered with thin slates. In the middle of it is the family fire, which continues to burn night and day all the year round; when it dies out, the home is deserted. ”

“ The picture in historical romances of the home of the mediaeval period, where the factory, or shop, joined the dining-room, where the apprentices ate and roomed in the home, where one might be compelled to furnish and provision his home literally as his castle for defense, presents a marked difference to the home of this century tending to syndicate all its labors with all the other homes of the community. Since the home is simply the organization and mechanism of the family life, it is most susceptible to material and social changes. It varies as do the fashions of men. ”

“ Crowded in the tenements where the bedrooms are small and often dark, where the living room is also a kitchen, a laundry, and often a garment-making shop, are the growing children whose bodies cry out for exercise and play. ”

“ Imagine a lonely country-house, a quiet 151 and well-ordered family seated at their evening meal, after dark, of a somewhat gloomy day, the apartment imperfectly lighted by the glowing fire, and according to such conveniences for the purpose as old times ordinarily afforded ”