In Chapter 14 of Anne’s House of Dreams, Anne and Gilbert walk home after a visit at the lighthouse:

“How the home lights shine out tonight through the dark!” said Anne. “That string of them over the harbor looks like a necklace. And what a coruscation there is up at the Glen! Oh, look, Gilbert; there is ours. I’m so glad we left it burning. I hate to come home to a dark house. OUR homelight, Gilbert! Isn’t it lovely to see?”

“Just one of earth’s many millions of homes, Anne–girl–but ours– OURS–our beacon in `a naughty world.’ When a fellow has a home and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of life?”

Gilbert’s quote comes from Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice (5.1.90-1). It is a phrase spoken by the heroine, Portia.

The Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare

ACT V.

1. SCENE I. Belmont. The avenue to PORTIA’s house. (continued)
LORENZO.

The reason is, your spirits are attentive;
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA, at a distance.]

PORTIA.
That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

NERISSA.
When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

PORTIA.
So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!

NERISSA.
It is your music, madam, of the house.

PORTIA.
Nothing is good, I see, without respect:
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

NERISSA.
Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.

PORTIA.
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season’d are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak’d!

[Music ceases.]

The complete play can be read online at Project Gutenberg