MAGIC WORDS Home (see also there's no place like home) Home, of course. -- Murilo Rubião, The Ex-Magician and Other Stories (1979) Mystique: "There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits" (Robert Southey). Origins: "The ancient root word ham, from which our word 'home' came, meant the triangle where two rivers meet which, with a short wall, can be defended. At first the word 'home' meant safety, then gradually comfort."41 Facts: The following lines are from "a magic spell for the Far Journey" by Yu Ch'ing: "[T]he deeper secret within the secret: The land that is nowhere, that is the true home."42 Variations and Incantations: • Happy Home "As a little girl, I would often chant and sing two words, which I had decided were magic words. These words were happy home, and how I came by them I don't know, but I believed if I said and sang them often enough, it would change things." -- Norma Fox Mazer, When She Was Good (2000) In Literature: • "The men of the regiment appreciated their homes more than any other thing (except perhaps the good cooking) that they had left behind. 'I never knew how much home was worth until deprived of it,' Houghton wrote and later added, 'We find that same reference paid the word 'home' in every company of the regiment. There is something magical in the word.'" -- Nancy Niblack Baxter, Gallant Fourteenth (1980) • "At dawn he convened this assembly and could say no more than the magical word 'home' before his men were racing to their boats to do just that." -- Lawrence A. Tritle, From Melos to My Lai (2000) • "Old Marheyo whispers the magic words 'home' and 'mother' knowingly in Tommo's ear." -- Laurie Robertson-Lorant, Meville: A Biography (1996) • "[He] called to the coachman 'Home!' The magic word seemed to effect the horses, for they started at a brisk trot, and within a couple of minutes the carriage was out of sight." -- Marie Corelli, Thelma (1887) 41 John Steinbeck, America and Americans (1966) 42 Secret of the Golden Flower, translated by Richard Wilhelm (1955)