{"id":"01KG6YH0PG2DCBGW59KN91XY8P","cid":"bafkreidn7j4jwaeveplaujt6lqjamxpwvx6xiwbkuvm3aidvtd5lj44gta","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2574,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":2515,"text":"and so, looking down upon the stairs, and all those landing-places\r\ntogether, with the main one at bottom, resembles not a little a balcony\r\nfor musicians, in some jolly old abode, in times Elizabethan. Shall I\r\ntell a weakness? I cherish the cobwebs there, and many a time arrest\r\nBiddy in the act of brushing them with her broom, and have many a\r\nquarrel with my wife and daughters about it.\r\n\r\nNow the ceiling, so to speak, of the place where you enter the house,\r\nthat ceiling is, in fact, the ceiling of the second floor, not the\r\nfirst. The two floors are made one here; so that ascending this turning\r\nstairs, you seem going up into a kind of soaring tower, or lighthouse.\r\nAt the second landing, midway up the chimney, is a mysterious door,\r\nentering to a mysterious closet; and here I keep mysterious cordials,\r\nof a choice, mysterious flavor, made so by the constant nurturing\r\nand subtle ripening of the chimney's gentle heat, distilled through\r\nthat warm mass of masonry. Better for wines is it than voyages to\r\nthe Indias; my chimney itself a tropic. A chair by my chimney in a\r\nNovember day is as good for an invalid as a long season spent in Cuba.\r\nOften I think how grapes might ripen against my chimney. How my wife's\r\ngeraniums bud there! Bud in December. Her eggs, too--can't keep them\r\nnear the chimney, on account of the hatching. Ah, a warm heart has my\r\nchimney.\r\n\r\nHow often my wife was at me about that projected grand entrance-hall\r\nof hers, which was to be knocked clean through the chimney, from one\r\nend of the house to the other, and astonish all guests by its generous\r\namplitude. \"But, wife,\" said I, \"the chimney--consider the chimney: if\r\nyou demolish the foundation, what is to support the superstructure?\"\r\n\"Oh, that will rest on the second floor.\" The truth is, women know\r\nnext to nothing about the realities of architecture. However, my wife\r\nstill talked of running her entries and partitions. She spent many long\r\nnights elaborating her plans; in imagination building her boasted hall\r\nthrough the chimney, as though its high mightiness were a mere spear of\r\nsorrel-top. At last, I gently reminded her that, little as she might\r\nfancy it, the chimney was a fact--a sober, substantial fact, which, in\r\nall her plannings, it would be well to take into full consideration.\r\nBut this was not of much avail.\r\n\r\nAnd here, respectfully craving her permission, I must say a few words\r\nabout this enterprising wife of mine. Though in years nearly old as\r\nmyself, in spirit she is young as my little sorrel mare, Trigger,\r\nthat threw me last fall. What is extraordinary, though she comes of\r\na rheumatic family, she is straight as a pine, never has any aches;\r\nwhile for me with the sciatica, I am sometimes as crippled up as any\r\nold apple-tree. But she has not so much as a toothache. As for her\r\nhearing--let me enter the house in my dusty boots, and she away up\r\nin the attic. And for her sight--Biddy, the housemaid, tells other\r\npeople's housemaids, that her mistress will spy a spot on the dresser\r\nstraight through the pewter platter, put up on purpose to hide it.\r\nHer faculties are alert as her limbs and her senses. No danger of my\r\nspouse dying of torpor. The longest night in the year I've known her\r\nlie awake, planning her campaign for the morrow. She is a natural\r\nprojector. The maxim, \"Whatever is, is right,\" is not hers. Her maxim\r\nis, Whatever is, is wrong; and what is more, must be altered; and what\r\nis still more, must be altered right away. Dreadful maxim for the wife\r\nof a dozy old dreamer like me, who dote on seventh days as days of\r\nrest, and out of a sabbatical horror of industry, will, on a week day,\r\ngo out of my road a quarter of a mile, to avoid the sight of a man at\r\nwork.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGPFPH23W72RDZNFT0X","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH0PG1CS662FV7XNWP44X","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH19AEEQ0C1VWMPBZP4GQ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:47.600Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:53.771Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}