Passage 100 My Perfect House

My house is perfect.

By great good fortune I have found a housekeeper no less to my mind,

a low-voiced, light-footed woman of discreet age, strong and deft enough to render me all the service I require,

and not afraid of loneliness.

She rises very early.

By my breakfast-time there remains little to be done under the roof save dressing of meals.

Very rarely do I hear even a clink of crockery; never the closing of a door or window.

Oh, blessed silence!

My house is perfect.

Just large enough to allow the grace of order in domestic circumstance;

just that superfluity of inner space, to lack which is to be less than at one's ease.

The fabric is sound; the work in wood and plaster tells of a more leisurely and a more honest age than ours.

The stairs do not creak under my step; I am attacked by no unkindly draught;

I can open or close a window without muscle-ache.

As to such trifles as the color and device of wall-paper, I confess my indifference;

be the walls only plain, and I am satisfied.

The first thing in one's home is comfort;

let beauty of detail be added if one has the means, the patience, the eye.

To me, this little book-room is beautiful, and chiefly because it is home.

Through the greater part of life I was homeless.

Many places have I lived, some which my soul disliked, and some which pleased me well;

but never till now with that sense of security which makes a home.

At any moment I might have been driven forth by evil accident, by disturbing necessity.

For all that time did I say within myself:

Some day, perchance, I shall have a home;

yet the "perchance" had more and more of emphasis as life went on,

and at the moment when fate was secretly smiling on me, I had all but abandoned hope.

I have my home at last.

This house is mine on a lease of a score of years.

So long I certainly shall not live;

but, if I did, even so long should I have the money to pay my rent and buy my food.

I am no cosmopolite.

Were I to think that I should die away from England, the thought would be dreadful to me.

And in England, this is the place of my choice; this is my home.