- description
- # Interruption and Confrontation with a Neighbor
## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)
This text segment is extracted from the short story "[I and My Chimney](arke:01KG6YFYGCYAYC9GHGT2Z086S9)" by Herman Melville. It is a portion of the text extracted from the source file "[i_and_my_chimney.txt](arke:01KG6YDDFE1YJ2Q37Q9JT1AJVB)" and focuses on a specific scene within the story. The segment was extracted on January 30, 2026, and is part of the "Melville" collection ([arke:01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF]).
## Context - Background and provenance from related entities
This segment follows "[The Chimney's Magnitude and the Narrator's Contemplation](arke:01KG6YGAFVENYSHGFMBF29WRZF)" and precedes "[Further Defense and Centrality of the Chimney](arke:01KG6YGAFVRR4WP0W362SK4TTD)" within the short story. The story is part of a larger collection of Melville's works. The text was extracted from a plain text file.
## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details
The segment describes an encounter where the narrator is digging around the foundation of his house, prompted by dreams. A neighbor interrupts him, leading to a conversation about the narrator's chimney. The neighbor's remarks are perceived as personal, and the narrator defends his chimney, portraying it as a central and important element of his house, even as a "king."
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:50.986Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Interruption and Confrontation with a Neighbor
- end_line
- 284
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:24.702Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 254
- text
- day—when I was a little out of my mind, I now think—getting a spade
from the garden, I set to work, digging round the foundation,
especially at the corners thereof, obscurely prompted by dreams of
striking upon some old, earthen-worn memorial of that by-gone day,
when, into all this gloom, the light of heaven entered, as the masons
laid the foundation-stones, peradventure sweltering under an August
sun, or pelted by a March storm. Plying my blunted spade, how vexed was
I by that ungracious interruption of a neighbor who, calling to see me
upon some business, and being informed that I was below said I need not
be troubled to come up, but he would go down to me; and so, without
ceremony, and without my having been forewarned, suddenly discovered
me, digging in my cellar.
“Gold digging, sir?”
“Nay, sir,” answered I, starting, “I was merely—ahem!—merely—I say I
was merely digging-round my chimney.”
“Ah, loosening the soil, to make it grow. Your chimney, sir, you regard
as too small, I suppose; needing further development, especially at the
top?”
“Sir!” said I, throwing down the spade, “do not be personal. I and my
chimney—”
“Personal?”
“Sir, I look upon this chimney less as a pile of masonry than as a
personage. It is the king of the house. I am but a suffered and
inferior subject.”
- title
- Interruption and Confrontation with a Neighbor