Home life

“ Every arrow strikes them; every cold wind blows full upon them; every storm beats against them. What, in the world, we would pass by in sport, in our homes would wound us to the quick. Very little can we bear at home, for it is a sensitive place.
If we would have a true home, we must guard well our thoughts and actions. A single bitter word may disquiet the home for a whole day; but, like unexpected flowers which spring up along our path full of freshness, fragrance, and beauty, so do kind words and gentle acts and sweet disposition make glad the home where peace and blessing dwell. ”

“ Nowhere else in all the range of literature have we such tender description of home life and love, such intuitive knowledge of child life, such wonderful sympathy with every form of domestic wrong and suffering, such delicate appreciation of the shyest and most unobtrusive of social virtues ”

“ And when darker and sadder days begin to shadow the home, what can cheer and brighten the sinking heart so finely as this daily resort to the fatherly One, who can make the tears of the lowliest sorrow to be the seed-pearls of the brightest crown? The mind is thus expanded, the heart softened, sentiments refined, passions subdued, hopes elevated, and pursuits ennobled. The greatest want of our intellectual and moral nature is here met, and home education becomes impregnated with the spirit and elements of our preparation for eternity. ”

“ The ideal which instantly obtrudes itself is this: A beautiful, comfortable house meeting all physical needs; a happy family, profoundly enjoying each other's society; a father, devotedly spending his life in obtaining the wherewithal to maintain this little heaven; a mother, completely wrapped up in her children and devotedly spending her life in their service, working miracles of advantage to them in so doing; children, happy in the home and growing up beautifully under its benign influence—everybody healthy, happy, and satisfied with the whole thing. ”

“ Home! That word touches every fiber of the soul, and strikes every chord of the human heart with its angelic fingers. Nothing but death can break its spell. What tender associations are linked with home! ”

“ The influences of home perpetuate themselves. The gentle graces of the mother live in the daughter long after her head is pillowed in the dust of death; and the fatherly kindness finds its echoes in the nobility and character of sons who come to wear his mantle and fill his place. While, on the other hand, from an unhappy, misgoverned, and ill-ordered home, go forth persons who shall make other homes miserable, and perpetuate the sorrows and sadness, the contentions and strifes, which have made their own early lives miserable. ”

“ I had arrived in sight of my father's habitation, and paused on a slight eminence to contemplate with mingled feelings of surprise, delight, and fear, the spot made sacred by the affections which were centred there, with all the ties which bound me to the world—that spot which, from the meanest to the noblest in every land, is the only haven of refuge from the troubles and travail in this life, and which finds a ready response in every heart by the one magic word—home! ”

“ To the little child, home is his world—he knows no other. The father's love, the mother's smile, the sister's embrace, the brother's welcome, throw about his home a heavenly halo, and make it as attractive to him as the home of angels. Home is the spot where the child pours out all his complaint, and it is the grave of all his sorrows. Childhood has its sorrows and its grievances; but home is the place where these are soothed and banished by the sweet lullaby of a fond mother's voice. ”

“ It is the home life which they act out when away. If this is rude, gruff, and lacking in civility, they will be lacking in all that constitutes true refinement, and thus most painfully reflect on the home training when in the presence of strangers. In the actions of children strangers can read a history of the home life. It tells of duty undone, of turmoil and strife, of fretful women and impatient men; or, it speaks of a home of love and peace, where patience sits enthroned in the hearts of all its members, and each is mindful of his or her duty towards the other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ It is from these antecedents that we may trace the formation of this deep-bedded concept, home.
The blended feelings covered by the word are a group of life's first necessities and most constant joys: shelter, quiet, safety, warmth, ease, comfort, peace, and love. Add to these food, and you have the sum of the animal's gratification. Home is indeed heaven to him. The world outside is, to the animal with a home, a field of excitement, exertion, and danger. He goes out to eat, in more or less danger of being eaten; but if he can secure his prey and drag it home he is then perfectly happy. ”

“ The home circle may be, ought to be, the most delightful place on earth, the center of the purest affections and most desirable associations, as well as of the most attractive and exalted beauties to be found this side of paradise. Nothing can excel in beauty and sublimity the quietude, peace, harmony, affection, and happiness of a well-ordered family, where virtue is nurtured and every good principle fostered and sustained. ”

“ The home is more than the family dwelling; it is the seat of the family life; and the family life stands to the life of the nation in the same relation as the index to the volume, or the expression of the countenance to the feeling of the heart. ”

“ If one wants to know how much he loves home and family, let him go away in his youth to a distant city for long months, then let him come back to that shelter and learn to the full the blessedness, the sacred joy of all that is comprised in that word “Home”! ”

“ Home should be the bright sanctuary of our hearts, the repository of all our thoughts. Have confidence in each other, and the seeds properly sown will spring forth with fruits that will bud and blossom, but never die. What is comparable to a well regulated, happy home? ”

“ Home is the paradise in which this wonderful world is first revealed to our growing consciousness, and as from its safe shelter we look out upon life we form our estimate of it according to the impressions and teachings we there receive. ”

“ Home is where the heart is, where our loved ones are. If my son is in a drinking place, my place is there. If my daughter, or the daughter of any one else, my family or any other family is in trouble, my place is there. ”

“ There are also lovely bits of home life upon both sides,—faultless interiors over which the mind will linger with delight in times far away from these, when the students of another age strive to make to themselves a picture of what sort of men these the great of the nineteenth century really were. ”

“ Have you him not before you in his humble home, secluded and forgotten of men, yet inhabiting a dream-world of crowded images? What beautiful stories—what touching little episodes of domestic life—lie in the quiet scenes of those quaint interiors ”

“ Although home means love, yet love alone may not insure happiness. In addition to love, without which a true home can not exist, we select four essential requisites to make home life useful and happy. These are intelligence, unselfishness, attractiveness, and religion. ”

“ Into it should flock friends and friendship, bringing the light of the world, the stimulus and the modifying power of contact with various natures, the fresh flowers of feeling gathered from wide fields. Out of it should flow benign charities, pleasant amenities, and all those influences which are the natural offspring of a high and harmonious home-life. ”

“ No matter how humble that home may be, how destitute its stores, or how poorly its inmates may be clad, if true hearts dwell there, it is still a home.
Of all places on earth, home is the most delicate and sensitive. Its springs of action are subtle and secret. Its chords move with a breath. Its fires are kindled with a spark. Its flowers are bruised with the least rudeness. The influences of our homes strike so directly on our hearts that they make sharp impressions. In our intercourse with the world we are barricaded, and the arrows let fly at our hearts are warded off ”

“ It is not a fine house, rich furniture, a luxurious table, a flowery garden, and a superb carriage, that make a home. Vastly superior to this is a true home. Our ideal homes should be heart-homes, in which virtue lives and love-flowers bloom and peace-offerings are daily brought to its altars. It is made radiant within with every social virtue, and beautiful without by those simple adornments {37} with which nature is every-where so prolific. The children born in such homes will leave them with regret, and come back to them in after life as pilgrims to a holy shrine. ”

“ To us, who have for so many unbroken generations been wholly bound to the home, who honestly believe that its service and maintenance constitute the whole duty of men and women, the picture of a world in which home and its affairs takes but a small part of life's attention gives rather a blank outlook. What else are we to do! What else to love—what else to serve eternally! What else to revere, to worship! How shall we occupy the hands of man if but a tithe of his labour supports him in comfort ”

“ What to many seems the very genius of household comfort, an easy, pleasant worldliness, is a wretched dependence, and will serve one very little in bearing up against the trials of affliction, or the dangers of prosperity. Worldliness may furnish a house, but it needs more, far more, to make a home. Too often the very spirit that prides itself upon crowding the house with magnificence, robs it of every true home grace. ”

“ The young folks themselves should take the lead in this matter. A home is not merely a place with four walls where people meet to eat and drink and sleep securely beneath a roof. Nay, boys and girls, a house is reared to be a home—the center where a family may gather into one; to be a serene retreat where the tenderest affections may find rest; where love may have a dwelling place, and the amenities of life gain ample scope; where parents and children may press one another heart to heart ”

“ Why can't you settle down in your own home, and make it bright, and be contented?"
"Well, what's the use of furniture, or a new house for that matter, when there's no one but Bushies to look at it?" I said. ”

“ We see the neglect of the home for the café, the theatre, the public amusement; the consequent degradation of the home into a place indispensable as a nursery [Pg 210] for children, and for the transaction of common, every-day matters, a place of resort for the accidents of life, for growing old in, for continuing the family name, but too tedious a place to be in much, to spend the evening and really live in. Enjoyments are sought for elsewhere. The charm of society, the keener interests of life, no longer centre in the household. ”

“ A historical survey of the home leads us to the conclusion that although times have changed, and homes have changed, and indeed all outward conditions have changed, the spiritual ideal of home is no different from what it has always been. The home is the seat of family life. Its one object is the making of healthy, wise, happy, satisfied, useful, and efficient people. The home is essentially a spiritual factory, whether or not it is to remain to any degree whatever a material one. ”

“ It should be the duty of all to strive to make home so happy that each evening will furnish pleasant memories to lighten the load of another day. Make it so happy that you do not tire of it, but long for the hour when your day's toil is over, and you desire to reach it as the happiest and dearest place on earth. Parents should more earnestly consider the importance of home culture, home happiness, home love. ”

“ It presents heavenly ideas of soft ease, and gentle repose to the oppressed mind and languid body—ideas of quiet seclusion, where one’s powers and faculties may be relaxed, and be at rest. The idea of “home” is perhaps the only one which preserves an equal influence over us through all the different periods of life. ”

“ Certainly let the board be spread, and let the bed be dressed for the traveller, but let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in these things. Honor to the house where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the intellect is awake and reads the law of the universe, the soul worships truth and love, honor and courtesy flow into all deeds. ”