Silence Isolation Quotes

According to the speaker's father, we should be OK with solitude and we should be self-reliant. We assume with this quote, however, that the father describes how we can show our deepest feelings to other people. Why does it matter if our feelings are revealed to others or not? If we are truly self-reliant, shouldn't we be fine with just having our feelings and not caring if anyone notices we're having them?

The poem begins with the speaker's father saying that superior people don't make long visits, which suggests that these people prefer not to stay too long. They, for their own reasons, want to keep everything short and sweet. In the poem's last two lines, we realize that, actually, it's the father who doesn't want them to stay too long. Superior people aren't necessarily those who like to keep moving, but rather those who understand the implicit message in "Make my house your inn."