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- 2026-01-30T07:57:35.240Z
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- 518
- text
- his grand canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Nor will I take oath,
that, had her project been accomplished, then, by help of lights hung
at judicious intervals through the tunnel, some Belzoni or other might
have succeeded in future ages in penetrating through the masonry, and
actually emerging into the dining-room, and once there, it would have
been inhospitable treatment of such a traveler to have denied him a
recruiting meal.
But my bustling wife did not restrict her objections, nor in the end
confine her proposed alterations to the first floor. Her ambition was
of the mounting order. She ascended with her schemes to the second
floor, and so to the attic. Perhaps there was some small ground for her
discontent with things as they were. The truth is, there was no regular
passage-way up-stairs or down, unless we again except that little
orchestra-gallery before mentioned. And all this was owing to the
chimney, which my gamesome spouse seemed despitefully to regard as the
bully of the house. On all its four sides, nearly all the chambers
sidled up to the chimney for the benefit of a fireplace. The chimney
would not go to them; they must needs go to it. The consequence was,
almost every room, like a philosophical system, was in itself an entry,
or passage-way to other rooms, and systems of rooms—a whole suite of
entries, in fact. Going through the house, you seem to be forever going
somewhere, and getting nowhere. It is like losing one’s self in the
woods; round and round the chimney you go, and if you arrive at all, it
is just where you started, and so you begin again, and again get
nowhere. Indeed—though I say it not in the way of faultfinding at
all—never was there so labyrinthine an abode. Guests will tarry with me
several weeks and every now and then, be anew astonished at some
unforeseen apartment.
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