{"id":"01KG6YH0PGCVGMCHWFA3ARVM1W","cid":"bafkreic75hawx7czuwr6elth26254rwumj5lxubxwt33icbzul3xwdscgm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2342,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 24","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":2278,"text":"sixth story on top of his previous four. And, not till the gentleman\r\nhas achieved his aspiration, not till he has stolen over the way by\r\ntwilight and observed how his sixth story soars beyond his neighbor's\r\nfifth--not till then does he retire to his rest with satisfaction.\r\n\r\nSuch folks, it seems to me, need mountains for neighbors, to take this\r\nemulous conceit of soaring out of them.\r\n\r\nIf, considering that mine is a very wide house, and by no means lofty,\r\naught in the above may appear like interested pleading, as if I did but\r\nfold myself about in the cloak of a general proposition, cunningly to\r\ntickle my individual vanity beneath it, such misconception must vanish\r\nupon my frankly conceding, that land adjoining my alder swamp was\r\nsold last month for ten dollars an acre, and thought a rash purchase\r\nat that; so that for wide houses hereabouts there is plenty of room,\r\nand cheap. Indeed so cheap--dirt cheap--is the soil, that our elms\r\nthrust out their roots in it, and hang their great boughs over it,\r\nin the most lavish and reckless way. Almost all our crops, too, are\r\nsown broadcast, even peas and turnips. A farmer among us, who should\r\ngo about his twenty-acre field, poking his finger into it here and\r\nthere, and dropping down a mustard seed, would be thought a penurious,\r\nnarrow-minded husbandman. The dandelions in the river-meadows, and the\r\nforget-me-nots along the mountain roads, you see at once they are put\r\nto no economy in space. Some seasons, too, our rye comes up here and\r\nthere a spear, sole and single like a church-spire. It doesn't care to\r\ncrowd itself where it knows there is such a deal of room. The world\r\nis wide, the world is all before us, says the rye. Weeds, too, it is\r\namazing how they spread. No such thing as arresting them--some of our\r\npastures being a sort of Alsatia for the weeds. As for the grass,\r\nevery spring it is like Kossuth's rising of what he calls the peoples.\r\nMountains, too, a regular camp-meeting of them. For the same reason,\r\nthe same all-sufficiency of room, our shadows march and countermarch,\r\ngoing through their various drills and masterly evolutions, like the\r\nold imperial guard on the Champs de Mars. As for the hills, especially\r\nwhere the roads cross them the supervisors of our various towns have\r\ngiven notice to all concerned, that they can come and dig them down\r\nand cart them off, and never a cent to pay, no more than for the\r\nprivilege of picking blackberries. The stranger who is buried here,\r\nwhat liberal-hearted landed proprietor among us grudges him six feet of\r\nrocky pasture?\r\n\r\nNevertheless, cheap, after all, as our land is, and much as it is\r\ntrodden under foot, I, for one, am proud of it for what it bears; and\r\nchiefly for its three great lions--the Great Oak, Ogg Mountain, and my\r\nchimney.\r\n\r\nMost houses, here, are but one and a half stories high; few exceed two.\r\nThat in which I and my chimney dwell, is in width nearly twice its\r\nheight, from sill to eaves--which accounts for the magnitude of its\r\nmain content--besides showing that in this house, as in this country at\r\nlarge, there is abundance of space, and to spare, for both of us.\r\n\r\nThe frame of the old house is of wood--which but the more sets forth\r\nthe solidity of the chimney, which is of brick. And as the great\r\nwrought nails, binding the clapboards, are unknown in these degenerate\r\ndays, so are the huge bricks in the chimney walls. The architect of the\r\nchimney must have had the pyramid of Cheops before him; for, after that\r\nfamous structure, it seems modeled, only its rate of decrease towards\r\nthe summit is considerably less, and it is truncated. From the exact\r\nmiddle of the mansion it soars from the cellar, right up through each\r\nsuccessive floor, till, four feet square, it breaks water from the\r\nridge-pole of the roof, like an anvil-headed whale, through the crest\r\nof a billow. Most people, though, liken it, in that part, to a razed\r\nobservatory, masoned up.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 24"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGJFFWM00TFQS297SSV","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH0PGH0S4HWV3V2TQ58NM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH0PMB1GP2FAC17NRM5DX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:47.600Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:53.656Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}