My Perfect House
My Perfect HouseMy 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.
