Returning Home

Excerpt

It is generally supposed that people who live at home,—­good domestic people, who love tea and their arm-chairs, and who keep the parlour hearth-rug ever warm,—­it is generally supposed that these are the people who value home the most, and best appreciate all the comforts of that cherished institution.  I am inclined to doubt this.  It is, I think, to those who live farthest away from home, to those who find the greatest difficulty in visiting home, that the word conveys the sweetest idea.  In some distant parts of the world it may be that an Englishman acknowledges his permanent resting place; but there are many others in which he will not call his daily house, his home.  He would, in his own idea, desecrate the word by doing so.  His home is across the blue waters, in the little northern island, which perhaps he may visit no more; which he has left, at any rate, for half his life; from which circumstances, and the necessity of living, have banished him.  His home is still in England, and when he speaks of home his thoughts are there.