{"id":"01KG8AK9DMKCQKH05WKMME9GZR","cid":"bafkreifefgx2u4lfj4abwplmrauylm7aviwhle3fani4ytz3wcab4ohcua","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2642,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:56.336Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","start_line":2582,"text":"youthful incredulity, as to the plain theory, and still plainer fact of\r\ndeath, hardly seems Christian. Advanced in years, as she knows she must\r\nbe, my wife seems to think that she is to teem on, and be inexhaustible\r\nforever. She doesn't believe in old age. At that strange promise in\r\nthe plain of Mamre, my old wife, unlike old Abraham's, would not have\r\njeeringly laughed within herself.\r\n\r\nJudge how to me, who, sitting in the comfortable shadow of my chimney,\r\nsmoking my comfortable pipe, with ashes not unwelcome at my feet,\r\nand ashes not unwelcome all but in my mouth; and who am thus in a\r\ncomfortable sort of not unwelcome, though, indeed, ashy enough way,\r\nreminded of the ultimate exhaustion even of the most fiery life; judge\r\nhow to me this unwarrantable vitality in my wife must come, sometimes,\r\nit is true, with a moral and a calm, but oftener with a breeze and a\r\nruffle.\r\n\r\nIf the doctrine be true, that in wedlock contraries attract, by how\r\ncogent a fatality must I have been drawn to my wife! While spicily\r\nimpatient of present and past, like a glass of ginger-beer she\r\noverflows with her schemes; and, with like energy as she puts down\r\nher foot, puts down her preserves and her pickles, and lives with\r\nthem in a continual future; or ever full of expectations both from\r\ntime and space, is ever restless for newspapers, and ravenous for\r\nletters. Content with the years that are gone, taking no thought for\r\nthe morrow, and looking for no new thing from any person or quarter\r\nwhatever, I have not a single scheme or expectation on earth, save in\r\nunequal resistance of the undue encroachment of hers.\r\n\r\nOld myself, I take to oldness in things; for that cause mainly loving\r\nold Montague, and old cheese, and old wine; and eschewing young people,\r\nhot rolls, new books, and early potatoes and very fond of my old\r\nclaw-footed chair, and old club-footed Deacon White, my neighbor, and\r\nthat still nigher old neighbor, my betwisted old grape-vine, that of a\r\nsummer evening leans in his elbow for cosy company at my window-sill,\r\nwhile I, within doors, lean over mine to meet his; and above all, high\r\nabove all, am fond of my high-mantled old chimney. But she, out of the\r\ninfatuate juvenility of hers, takes to nothing but newness; for that\r\ncause mainly, loving new cider in autumn, and in spring, as if she\r\nwere own daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, fairly raving after all sorts of\r\nsalads and spinages, and more particularly green cucumbers (though all\r\nthe time nature rebukes such unsuitable young hankerings in so elderly\r\na person, by never permitting such things to agree with her), and has\r\nan itch after recently-discovered fine prospects (so no graveyard be\r\nin the background), and also after Swedenborganism, and the Spirit\r\nRapping philosophy, with other new views, alike in things natural and\r\nunnatural; and immortally hopeful, is forever making new flower-beds\r\neven on the north side of the house, where the bleak mountain wind\r\nwould scarce allow the wiry weed called hard-hack to gain a thorough\r\nfooting; and on the road-side sets out mere pipe-stems of young elms;\r\nthough there is no hope of any shade from them, except over the ruins\r\nof her great granddaughter's gravestones; and won't wear caps, but\r\nplaits her gray hair; and takes the Ladies' Magazine for the fashions;\r\nand always buys her new almanac a month before the new year; and rises\r\nat dawn; and to the warmest sunset turns a cold shoulder; and still\r\ngoes on at odd hours with her new course of history, and her French,\r\nand her music; and likes a young company; and offers to ride young\r\ncolts; and sets out young suckers in the orchard; and has a spite\r\nagainst my elbowed old grape-vine, and my club-footed old neighbor, and\r\nmy claw-footed old chair, and above all, high above all, would fain\r\npersecute, until death, my high-mantled old chimney. By what perverse\r\nmagic, I a thousand times think, does such a very autumnal old lady\r","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJJM9B1B6R0AVRGKYSED","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9DMSYQ1EN8MV7DGCA8J","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9DRESA6RSPKDH07ERB6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.412Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:07.282Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}