- end_line
- 3379
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3318
- text
- gossip and knave. Yes, wife, a vile eavesdropping varlet was Momus."
"Moses? Mumps? Stuff with your mumps and Moses?"
The truth is, my wife, like all the rest of the world, cares not
a fig for philosophical jabber. In dearth of other philosophical
companionship, I and my chimney have to smoke and philosophize
together. And sitting up so late as we do at it, a mighty smoke it is
that we two smoky old philosophers make.
But my spouse, who likes the smoke of my tobacco as little as she does
that of the soot, carries on her war against both. I live in continual
dread lest, like the golden bowl, the pipes of me and my chimney shall
yet be broken. To stay that mad project of my wife's, naught answers.
Or, rather, she herself is incessantly answering, incessantly besetting
me with her terrible alacrity for improvement, which is a softer name
for destruction. Scarce a day I do not find her with her tape-measure,
measuring for her grand hall, while Anna holds a yardstick on one side,
and Julia looks approvingly on from the other. Mysterious intimations
appear in the nearest village paper, signed "Claude," to the effect
that a certain structure, standing on a certain hill, is a sad blemish
to an otherwise lovely landscape. Anonymous letters arrive, threatening
me with I know not what, unless I remove my chimney. Is it my wife,
too, or who, that sets up the neighbors to badgering me on the same
subject, and hinting to me that my chimney, like a huge elm, absorbs
all moisture from my garden? At night, also, my wife will start as
from sleep, professing to hear ghostly noises from the secret closet.
Assailed on all sides, and in all ways, small peace have I and my
chimney.
Were it not for the baggage, we would together pack up and remove from
the country.
What narrow escapes have been ours! Once I found in a drawer a whole
portfolio of plans and estimates. Another time, upon returning after
a day's absence, I discovered my wife standing before the chimney in
earnest conversation with a person whom I at once recognized as a
meddlesome architectural reformer, who, because he had no gift for
putting up anything was ever intent upon pulling them down; in various
parts of the country having prevailed upon half-witted old folks to
destroy their old-fashioned houses, particularly the chimneys.
But worst of all was, that time I unexpectedly returned at early
morning from a visit to the city, and upon approaching the house,
narrowly escaped three brickbats which fell, from high aloft, at my
feet. Glancing up, what was my horror to see three savages, in blue
jean overalls, in the very act of commencing the long-threatened
attack. Aye, indeed, thinking of those three brickbats, I and my
chimney have had narrow escapes.
It is now some seven years since I have stirred from my home. My city
friends all wonder why I don't come to see them, as in former times.
They think I am getting sour and unsocial. Some say that I have become
a sort of mossy old misanthrope, while all the time the fact is, I am
simply standing guard over my mossy old chimney; for it is resolved
between me and my chimney, that I and my chimney will never surrender.
THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS
- title
- Chunk 18