- description
- # Wife and Daughters' Reaction and the Emerging Conflict
## Overview
This is a segment from the short story "[I and My Chimney](arke:01KG6YFYGCYAYC9GHGT2Z086S9)" by Herman Melville. It describes the reaction of the narrator's wife and daughters to a letter suggesting the presence of a secret closet within the chimney. The segment spans lines 863-892 of the source file, "[i_and_my_chimney.txt](arke:01KG6YDDFE1YJ2Q37Q9JT1AJVB)".
## Context
The segment is part of a larger narrative contained within the short story "[I and My Chimney](arke:01KG6YFYGCYAYC9GHGT2Z086S9)", which is included in the "[Melville](arke:01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF)" collection. This segment follows "[Narrator's Initial Reaction and Recollections](arke:01KG6YGBV28HH5CBNE0GB7Q4B1)" and precedes "[Narrator's resolve and active defense against wife's schemes](arke:01KG6YGBV2JFFTQ7ZZXAN3CF3N)".
## Contents
The segment details the wife's explosive reaction to the letter and the daughters' immediate acceptance of the possibility of a secret closet, citing the mystery surrounding a deceased kinsman and the chimney's construction as evidence. The narrator, however, suspects that his wife and daughters are manipulating him to get rid of the chimney, potentially in collusion with Mr. Scribe, who stands to profit from its demolition. The narrator resolves to defend his chimney.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:52.728Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Wife and Daughters' Reaction and the Emerging Conflict
- end_line
- 892
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:24.702Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 863
- text
- “Well, old man,” said she, “who is it from, and what is it about?”
“Read it, wife,” said I, handing it.
Read it she did, and then—such an explosion! I will not pretend to
describe her emotions, or repeat her expressions. Enough that my
daughters were quickly called in to share the excitement. Although they
had never before dreamed of such a revelation as Mr. Scribe’s; yet upon
the first suggestion they instinctively saw the extreme likelihood of
it. In corroboration, they cited first my kinsman, and second, my
chimney; alleging that the profound mystery involving the former, and
the equally profound masonry involving the latter, though both
acknowledged facts, were alike preposterous on any other supposition
than the secret closet.
But all this time I was quietly thinking to myself: Could it be hidden
from me that my credulity in this instance would operate very favorably
to a certain plan of theirs? How to get to the secret closet, or how to
have any certainty about it at all, without making such fell work with
the chimney as to render its set destruction superfluous? That my wife
wished to get rid of the chimney, it needed no reflection to show; and
that Mr. Scribe, for all his pretended disinterestedness, was not
opposed to pocketing five hundred dollars by the operation, seemed
equally evident. That my wife had, in secret, laid heads together with
Mr. Scribe, I at present refrain from affirming. But when I consider
her enmity against my chimney, and the steadiness with which at the
last she is wont to carry out her schemes, if by hook or by crook she
can, especially after having been once baffled, why, I scarcely knew at
what step of hers to be surprised.
- title
- Wife and Daughters' Reaction and the Emerging Conflict