{"id":"01KG6G87R0N0N64AA1KB3041W7","cid":"bafkreidfbrw3thnu36nnlxhcwhtvh2h5wgiqrjmcashfytxesnphatitae","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9342,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 10","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":9284,"text":"likes young company; and offers to ride young colts; and sets out young\r\nsuckers in the orchard; and has a spite against my elbowed old\r\ngrape-vine, and my club-footed old neighbour, and my claw-footed old\r\nchair, and above all, high above all, would fain persecute, unto death,\r\nmy high-manteled old chimney. By what perverse magic, I a thousand times\r\nthink, does such a very autumnal old lady have such a very vernal young\r\nsoul? When I would remonstrate at times, she spins round on me with,\r\n‘Oh, don’t you grumble, old man (she always calls me old man), it’s I,\r\nyoung I, that keep you from stagnating.’ Well, I suppose it is so. Yea,\r\nafter all, these things are well ordered. My wife, as one of her poor\r\nrelations, good soul, intimates, is the salt of the earth, and none the\r\nless the salt of my sea, which otherwise were unwholesome. She is its\r\nmonsoon, too, blowing a brisk gale over it, in the one steady direction\r\nof my chimney.\r\n\r\nNot insensible of her superior energies, my wife has frequently made me\r\npropositions to take upon herself all the responsibilities of my\r\naffairs. She is desirous that, domestically, I should abdicate; that,\r\nrenouncing further rule, like the venerable Charles V., I should retire\r\ninto some sort of monastery. But indeed, the chimney excepted, I have\r\nlittle authority to lay down. By my wife’s ingenious application of the\r\nprinciple that certain things belong of right to female jurisdiction, I\r\nfind myself, through my easy compliances, insensibly stripped by degrees\r\nof one masculine prerogative after another. In a dream I go about my\r\nfields, a sort of lazy, happy-go-lucky, good-for-nothing, loafing old\r\nLear. Only by some sudden revelation am I reminded who is over me; as\r\nyear before last, one day seeing in one corner of the premises fresh\r\ndeposits of mysterious boards and timbers, the oddity of the incident at\r\nlength begat serious meditation. ‘Wife,’ said I, ‘whose boards and\r\ntimbers are those I see near the orchard there? Do you know anything\r\nabout them, wife? Who put them there? You know I do not like the\r\nneighbours to use my land that way; they should ask permission first.’\r\n\r\nShe regarded me with a pitying smile.\r\n\r\n‘Why, old man, don’t you know I am building a new barn? Didn’t you know\r\nthat, old man?’\r\n\r\nThis is the poor old lady that was accusing me of tyrannising over her.\r\n\r\nTo return now to the chimney. Upon being assured of the futility of her\r\nproposed hall, so long as the obstacle remained, for a time my wife was\r\nfor a modified project. But I could never exactly comprehend it. As far\r\nas I could see through it, it seemed to involve the general idea of a\r\nsort of irregular archway, or elbowed tunnel, which was to penetrate the\r\nchimney at some convenient point under the staircase, and carefully\r\navoiding dangerous contact with the fireplaces, and particularly\r\nsteering clear of the great interior flue, was to conduct the\r\nenterprising traveller from the front door all the way into the\r\ndining-room in the remote rear of the mansion. Doubtless it was a bold\r\nstroke of genius, that plan of hers, and so was Nero’s when he schemed\r\nhis grand canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Nor will I take oath,\r\nthat, had her project been accomplished, then, by help of lights hung at\r\njudicious intervals through the tunnel, some Belzoni or other might have\r\nsucceeded in future ages in penetrating through the masonry, and\r\nactually emerging into the dining-room, and once there, it would have\r\nbeen inhospitable treatment of such a traveller to have denied him a\r\nrecruiting meal.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 10"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6QRNCH782S2B3576MSHF","peer_type":"article","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G87R05ZVD6CF094CVPYFT","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G87R6HH87RD2TH6HECZM0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:19.840Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:30.640Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}