To us our house was not unsentient matter

"To us our house was not unsentient matter - it had heart and a soul and eyes to see us with; and approvals, and solicitudes, and deep sympathies, and we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome - and we could not enter it unmoved."
 - 1897, Mark Twain