Habitation

“ The country is not a proper place to pursue such studies; but any man may chuse a healthy habitation in town, and live in a lightsome house, a high apartment, refreshed by a breeze in summer, and enlightened by the sun in winter. ”

“ He looks upon it as a house, or habitation, a dwelling-place, a resting-place, a hiding-place, our Father's house, where there are many mansions, and our everlasting home. It is a house in the heavens, in that high and holy place which as far excels all the palaces of this earth as the heavens are high above the earth. ”

“ We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest us we know but the boundaries that march with ours. ”

“ No habitation, therefore, in this country, should look old: it should give an impression of present prosperity, of swift motion and high energy of life; too rapid in its successive operation to attain greatness, or allow of decay, in its works. ”

“ Here then was no asylum for me: a place of rest must be sought at some neighbouring habitation; it was probable that one would be found at no great distance; the path that led from the spot where I stood, through a gate into a meadow, might conduct me to the nearest dwelling ”

“ These general rules are intended only to emphasise the fact that in houses which are to become in the truest sense homes—that is, places of habitation which represent the inhabitants, directions or rules for beautiful colour and arrangement of interiors, must always follow the guiding incidents of class and locality. ”

“ My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! ”

“ Give to some people the most magnificent habitation filled and surrounded with everything beautiful, and leave them to do with it as they please, and how long will it be before that palatial residence will be changed to a loathsome den? ”

“ The particular habitations in which our lot is cast, the place of our nativity and of our settlement, are of God's determining and appointing, which is a reason why we should accommodate ourselves to the habitations we are in, and make the best of that which is. ”

“ Now, what is the end, object, and use of all habitations, houses, tenements, and premises whatsoever in this same united kingdom of our's, and in this glorious nineteenth century, except to shelter a man from the cold, or the heat, or the damp, or the frost, or the wind, whichever may come upon him, or any part or parcel of the same ”

“ These habitations are, of course, held only by the poor and outcast, yet, in spite of circumstances, they live merrily from hand to mouth how they can, and by means, perhaps, not always of the most legitimate description. ”

“ Their habitations are exactly like our houses on earth, but more beautiful. They contain chambers, with-drawing-rooms, and bed-chambers, in great numbers, and are encompassed with gardens and flower-beds. ”

“ In a few, some decayed steps seem to have led to an upper story, which is no longer in existence. Some habitations, however, probably belonging to the richer and more fashionable, are far more spacious. ”

“ Concerning the inhabitants—their number, few or many—their size and stature, whether strong able-bodied men or weak,—their habitations, whether they lived in tents or houses, whether in open villages or in walled towns,—whether the woods were standing as in those countries that are uncultivated, through the unskillfulness and slothfulness of the inhabitants, or whether the woods were cut down, and the country made champaign, for the convenience of tillage. ”

“ A house everywhere stands as the representative image of home. It is the symbol of those home-born, home-bred, and home-felt joys which constitute "that best portion of a good man's life." Suppose there were no inclement skies, no chilling frosts, nor scorching heat, nor drenching rains, nor pitiless blasts, nor anything, indeed, to make houses necessary to bodily comfort, does it follow that human beings would then need and have no houses? ”

“ The homes of the working people, just here, look as if intended to illustrate a revised edition of ‘the happy family.’ Human beings, both sexes, of several generations, judging from the very old looking women and the few old men, and the little babies we see, with horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and hens, all live under one outside upper roof, having perhaps the choice of apartments inside. The door-yards look neat, but without exception, every house has somewhere near the never-to-be-missed fertilizer pile, often higher than the house, and generally the bigger the house the bigger the pile. ”

“ Presently, the man who had bought the house came to him and said, ‘Look thyself out a lodging, for I have need of my house.’ So he bethought himself and considering that he had nothing requiring a house, except his wife, who had borne him a son and daughter,—for he had not a servant left,—hired a room in one of the mean lodging houses and there took up his abode, after having lived in honour and luxury, with many servants and much wealth, and came to lack of one day’s bread. ”

“ HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.
First principles of home-making.
In this art of home-making I have set down in my mind certain first principles, like the axioms of Euclid, and the first is,—
No home is possible without love.
All business marriages and marriages of convenience, all mere culinary marriages and marriages of mere animal passion, make the creation of a true home impossible in the outset. Love is the jewelled foundation of this New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, and takes as many bright forms as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of that mysterious vision. ”

“ All I've ever done is to live right here in this house ever since I was born, and look out at the mountains and the big meadows and the river and the churchyard, and keep house and take care of you and the children. ”

“ The house, with its exits and entrances, its properties of furniture and necessities, its dressing-tables, its warming-pans, and its tiny silver eye-bath still standing between the hair-brushes—the house demands its population. ”

“ The home has a story of its own, as has the family. In primitive days there was little necessity of a dwelling-place, except as a nest for young or a cache for provisions. A cave or a rough shelter of boughs was a makeshift for a home. ”

“ We have, for instance, yet to see that all our houses, however small, shall have a proper number of bedrooms, large, light, and airy—for we spend one-third of our lives in them. We have also to see that both beauty and fitness shall be properly considered in building a house. ”

“ When we build a house, it shall not be for its uses only. We shall have kitchens and drawing rooms and libraries and pictures and flowers, if possible. But the house, with all its comforts and luxuries, is mere framework, and our words and doings construct the true, the spiritual home. ”

“ Who is there amongst us that has not felt, in walking through the rooms of some uninhabited house, with every appliance of human comfort strewn about, ease and luxury within, wavy trees and sloping lawn or eddying waters without—who, in seeing all these, has not questioned himself as to why this should be deserted? ”

“ Since I have not yet built my land house, I haven't got beyond a few general ideas, and in presenting them I feel as cocksure as the unmarried woman who writes the column in the Sunday supplement on how to rear children. My first idea about a house is that it should be built to live in. Throughout the house, in all the building of it, this should be the paramount idea. ”

“ The perfect house, as I conceive it, is to combine as many of the advantages of living out of doors as may be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one of these is the sympathy with green and growing things. ”

“ CHAPTER I.—THE HALL.
In studying how to make home beautiful, we must not forget that, first of all, there must be a home; and that in a true home, the household, and not the house, is of primary importance. We have all seen careful housekeepers whose first and last thought was to keep their domains with absolute neatness, and whose domestic law was of Median and Persian inflexibility. ”

“ The structure and arrangements of a house adapted to the climate, soil, and wants of a family, including drainage, ventilation, warming, economy of labour; the management of a household in relation to individual wants and to society, including the subjects of food and waste, domestic service, petty trading, the care of the sick and prevention of disease, occupations and amusements—these and many other topics belong directly to the formation of a [Pg 246] noble Christian home. These are subjects that men and women have a direct personal interest in. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the ancient house stood rearing Undisturb'd her chimneys high, And her gilded vanes still veering Toward each quarter of the sky :
While like wave to wave succeeding Through the world of joy and strife, Household after household speeding Handed on the torch of life ”

“ For miles every house and roof stood revealed in clearer outline, wherever an angle could meet the eye in that close forestry. As they advanced more definitely into view, they, the homes of the people, could not fail to carry their own special suggestion and to impart their own significance. ”

“ Poor Bill found very soon that his house and furniture were to be kept at such an ideal point of perfection that he needed another house to live in,—for, poor fellow, he found the difference between having a house and a home. ”

“ In the country the sense of the house is as strong as ever, with this change—that it is the day of the little house. Of the great house in its perfect sense as a home there are but few happy instances. ”

“ He is very interested to hear of your plan to build a wooden house on your new piece of land, to be a home for the young and the aged—and also that is to be used as a home for poor children, to give them a change and rest during the summer. ”

“ By-and-by we meet signs of inhabitants—a house or two; a few fields of mowing grass; the heaps of refuse at lead-mines, and our walk derives a pleasurable interest from the hourly change, the bleak, barren, and lonely, for the sheltered, the cultivated, and inhabited. ”

“ What would be thought of the declaration that a house was inhabited, and by a certain kind of folks, when no such people were ever seen to go out or come in, or had even been visible through the windows? ”

“ For every house had its private garden, large or small. Every householder garnished his dwelling-rooms with flowers, instead of ornaments of potter's ware or metal: the floors were still strewn with leaves and grasses, and the doorways often decked with boughs. ”

“ A modern dwelling and luxurious in everything that wealth could suggest for comfort, it stood in the midst of exquisitely kept lawns, with groups of trees, parterres of flowers massed in colors, with greenhouse, grapery and garden ”

“ If you wish to test the soundness of this advice, build a house, furnish it extravagantly and supply furnace heat to all but one room, and in that room build upon an ample hearth a glowing fire of hickory logs, and in the presence of that genial blaze, upon the bare floor of that unfurnished room, will gather the united household. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So does the restless traveller pant for his native soil, and find in his own cottage, in the arms of his wife, in the affections of his children, and in the labour necessary for their support, that happiness which he had sought in vain through the wide world. ”

“ The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open house. ”

“ As soon as the fiery heat of the sun declined, you might behold the master of every cottage reposing before his own door, and feasting upon his mess of roots or fruits, with all his family around him. If a traveller or stranger happened to come from a distant country, he was welcome to enter into every house, and share the provisions of the family ”

“ The house is small but comfortable, the garden is large and shady. Our household—don't sneer too much at these minor details—our household will consist of my femme de chambre, and another woman that she is to engage, and a man servant for you. ”

“ I saw them construct dwelling-places for the use of their families, and exhibit attachment for localities, so much so that, from moment to moment, I saw a world fade away, and a new world arise in its place, like the changing of the scenes in a fairy-play. ”

“ Our house is not in the least beautiful, but it is well situated and comfortable, perfectly still in the middle of a garden surrounded by fields and meadows, and yet within reach of shops and civilization. ”