{"id":"01KG8AK9DPYMA7XS0W4M0S6EM0","cid":"bafkreicvckzzvr3274e5zjw7kzkxki3rjefuqqzbsfvudn4c3tkese34be","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2537,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:56.336Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","start_line":2484,"text":"only to keep them comfortable, but also to keep off wolves, and other\r\nsavage monsters, so my chimney, by its obvious smoke at top, keeps off\r\nprowling burglars from the towns--for what burglar or murderer would\r\ndare break into an abode from whose chimney issues such a continual\r\nsmoke--betokening that if the inmates are not stirring, at least fires\r\nare, and in case of an alarm, candles may readily be lighted, to say\r\nnothing of muskets.\r\n\r\nBut stately as is the chimney--yea, grand high altar as it is, right\r\nworthy for the celebration of high mass before the Pope of Rome, and\r\nall his cardinals--yet what is there perfect in this world? Caius\r\nJulius Caesar, had he not been so inordinately great, they say that\r\nBrutus, Cassius, Antony, and the rest, had been greater. My chimney,\r\nwere it not so mighty in its magnitude, my chambers had been larger.\r\nHow often has my wife ruefully told me, that my chimney, like the\r\nEnglish aristocracy, casts a contracting shade all round it. She avers\r\nthat endless domestic inconveniences arise--more particularly from\r\nthe chimney's stubborn central locality. The grand objection with her\r\nis, that it stands midway in the place where a fine entrance-hall\r\nought to be. In truth, there is no hall whatever to the house--nothing\r\nbut a sort of square landing-place, as you enter from the wide front\r\ndoor. A roomy enough landing-place, I admit, but not attaining to the\r\ndignity of a hall. Now, as the front door is precisely in the middle\r\nof the front of the house, inwards it faces the chimney. In fact, the\r\nopposite wall of the landing-place is formed solely by the chimney;\r\nand hence--owing to the gradual tapering of the chimney--is a little\r\nless than twelve feet in width. Climbing the chimney in this part, is\r\nthe principal staircase--which, by three abrupt turns, and three minor\r\nlanding-places, mounts to the second floor, where, over the front door,\r\nruns a sort of narrow gallery, something less than twelve feet long,\r\nleading to chambers on either hand. This gallery, of course, is railed;\r\nand 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","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJJM9B1B6R0AVRGKYSED","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9DJHZGTGN4VH2BDXXKA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9DMSYQ1EN8MV7DGCA8J","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.414Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:06.792Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}