- description
- # Wife's Campaign to Alter the Chimney
## Overview
This segment, titled "Wife's Campaign to Alter the Chimney," is an excerpt from the short story "I and My Chimney." It details a humorous domestic conflict between the narrator and his wife regarding architectural plans for their home. The segment spans lines 367 to 381 of the source text.
## Context
This segment is part of the short story "[I and My Chimney](arke:01KG8AJ72QDX8N8STJ3550X2NW)," which is included in the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The text was extracted from the file "i_and_my_chimney.txt." This segment follows the description of the chimney's utility and the narrator's appreciation for it, and precedes an introduction to the wife's character.
## Contents
The segment recounts the narrator's wife's ambitious plan to demolish the house's chimney to create a grand entrance hall. The narrator expresses skepticism, highlighting the structural importance of the chimney and the wife's perceived lack of understanding regarding architectural realities. Despite her elaborate planning and imaginative vision, the narrator gently reminds her of the chimney's "sober, substantial fact," though his words have little effect on her persistent ideas.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:58.339Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Wife's Campaign to Alter the Chimney
- end_line
- 381
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:36.358Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 367
- text
- How often my wife was at me about that projected grand entrance-hall of
hers, which was to be knocked clean through the chimney, from one end
of the house to the other, and astonish all guests by its generous
amplitude. “But, wife,” said I, “the chimney—consider the chimney: if
you demolish the foundation, what is to support the superstructure?”
“Oh, that will rest on the second floor.” The truth is, women know next
to nothing about the realities of architecture. However, my wife still
talked of running her entries and partitions. She spent many long
nights elaborating her plans; in imagination building her boasted hall
through the chimney, as though its high mightiness were a mere spear of
sorrel-top. At last, I gently reminded her that, little as she might
fancy it, the chimney was a fact—a sober, substantial fact, which, in
all her plannings, it would be well to take into full consideration.
But this was not of much avail.
- title
- Wife's Campaign to Alter the Chimney