{"id":"01KG6YH1XC69V37JT4VSYKB8C4","cid":"bafkreidiugdwb7o46o7c4kvoyjy4whnbdbeve545uahc2ixaukdw332hty","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3379,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 18","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":3318,"text":"gossip and knave. Yes, wife, a vile eavesdropping varlet was Momus.\"\r\n\r\n\"Moses? Mumps? Stuff with your mumps and Moses?\"\r\n\r\nThe truth is, my wife, like all the rest of the world, cares not\r\na fig for philosophical jabber. In dearth of other philosophical\r\ncompanionship, I and my chimney have to smoke and philosophize\r\ntogether. And sitting up so late as we do at it, a mighty smoke it is\r\nthat we two smoky old philosophers make.\r\n\r\nBut my spouse, who likes the smoke of my tobacco as little as she does\r\nthat of the soot, carries on her war against both. I live in continual\r\ndread lest, like the golden bowl, the pipes of me and my chimney shall\r\nyet be broken. To stay that mad project of my wife's, naught answers.\r\nOr, rather, she herself is incessantly answering, incessantly besetting\r\nme with her terrible alacrity for improvement, which is a softer name\r\nfor destruction. Scarce a day I do not find her with her tape-measure,\r\nmeasuring for her grand hall, while Anna holds a yardstick on one side,\r\nand Julia looks approvingly on from the other. Mysterious intimations\r\nappear in the nearest village paper, signed \"Claude,\" to the effect\r\nthat a certain structure, standing on a certain hill, is a sad blemish\r\nto an otherwise lovely landscape. Anonymous letters arrive, threatening\r\nme with I know not what, unless I remove my chimney. Is it my wife,\r\ntoo, or who, that sets up the neighbors to badgering me on the same\r\nsubject, and hinting to me that my chimney, like a huge elm, absorbs\r\nall moisture from my garden? At night, also, my wife will start as\r\nfrom sleep, professing to hear ghostly noises from the secret closet.\r\nAssailed on all sides, and in all ways, small peace have I and my\r\nchimney.\r\n\r\nWere it not for the baggage, we would together pack up and remove from\r\nthe country.\r\n\r\nWhat narrow escapes have been ours! Once I found in a drawer a whole\r\nportfolio of plans and estimates. Another time, upon returning after\r\na day's absence, I discovered my wife standing before the chimney in\r\nearnest conversation with a person whom I at once recognized as a\r\nmeddlesome architectural reformer, who, because he had no gift for\r\nputting up anything was ever intent upon pulling them down; in various\r\nparts of the country having prevailed upon half-witted old folks to\r\ndestroy their old-fashioned houses, particularly the chimneys.\r\n\r\nBut worst of all was, that time I unexpectedly returned at early\r\nmorning from a visit to the city, and upon approaching the house,\r\nnarrowly escaped three brickbats which fell, from high aloft, at my\r\nfeet. Glancing up, what was my horror to see three savages, in blue\r\njean overalls, in the very act of commencing the long-threatened\r\nattack. Aye, indeed, thinking of those three brickbats, I and my\r\nchimney have had narrow escapes.\r\n\r\nIt is now some seven years since I have stirred from my home. My city\r\nfriends all wonder why I don't come to see them, as in former times.\r\nThey think I am getting sour and unsocial. Some say that I have become\r\na sort of mossy old misanthrope, while all the time the fact is, I am\r\nsimply standing guard over my mossy old chimney; for it is resolved\r\nbetween me and my chimney, that I and my chimney will never surrender.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTHE PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 18"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGPFPH23W72RDZNFT0X","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH1XCVVJ91SNYZ1GK1XFQ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:48.844Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:54.451Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}