To provide shelter?  A roof over your head? Security at night from wolves and thieves? A place to stash your stuff?  Yes, maybe, all those things and more. 

But also this: a place to dream in peace. 

I talked to her about Gaston Bachelard and his idea that the purpose of a house was that it allowed one to dream in peace.

Source: Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst: An unfinished history (London: Harper Press, 2009), p. 162

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