- description
- # Contemplation and Defense of the Chimney
## Overview
This segment, titled "Contemplation and Defense of the Chimney," is a textual excerpt from the short story [I and My Chimney](arke:01KG8AJ72QDX8N8STJ3550X2NW). It spans lines 248-320 of the source file [i_and_my_chimney.txt](arke:01KG89J1H4TA19251AXAPE3ZWC).
## Context
The segment is part of the larger work [I and My Chimney](arke:01KG8AJ72QDX8N8STJ3550X2NW), which is included in the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. It follows the segment titled [Initial Description and Pre-eminence of the Chimney](arke:01KG8AJKWEG63TTKDZZD9S60C7) and precedes [Introduction of Wife's Objections](arke:01KG8AJKWR22S36RDB52M6YWE7), indicating its place in the narrative progression of the short story.
## Contents
The text details the narrator's profound contemplation and defense of his house's central chimney. The narrator describes the chimney's vastness in the cellar, comparing its "druidical look" to primeval woods. He recounts an incident where a neighbor discovers him digging around the chimney's foundation, leading to a humorous exchange where the narrator passionately defends the chimney as a "personage" and "the king of the house." The segment further elaborates on the chimney's immense, almost incomprehensible dimensions, and its practical function in warming the house and deterring burglars, likening the family gathered around it to "Iroquois Indians" around a fire.
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:58.675Z
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- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Contemplation and Defense of the Chimney
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- 320
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:36.358Z
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- start_line
- 248
- text
- Very often I go down into my cellar, and attentively survey that vast
square of masonry. I stand long, and ponder over, and wonder at it. It
has a druidical look, away down in the umbrageous cellar there whose
numerous vaulted passages, and far glens of gloom, resemble the dark,
damp depths of primeval woods. So strongly did this conceit steal over
me, so deeply was I penetrated with wonder at the chimney, that one
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.”
In fact, I would permit no gibes to be cast at either myself or my
chimney; and never again did my visitor refer to it in my hearing,
without coupling some compliment with the mention. It well deserves a
respectful consideration. There it stands, solitary and alone—not a
council—of ten flues, but, like his sacred majesty of Russia, a unit of
an autocrat.
Even to me, its dimensions, at times, seem incredible. It does not look
so big—no, not even in the cellar. By the mere eye, its magnitude can
be but imperfectly comprehended, because only one side can be received
at one time; and said side can only present twelve feet, linear
measure. But then, each other side also is twelve feet long; and the
whole obviously forms a square and twelve times twelve is one hundred
and forty-four. And so, an adequate conception of the magnitude of this
chimney is only to be got at by a sort of process in the higher
mathematics by a method somewhat akin to those whereby the surprising
distances of fixed stars are computed.
It need hardly be said, that the walls of my house are entirely free
from fireplaces. These all congregate in the middle—in the one grand
central chimney, upon all four sides of which are hearths—two tiers of
hearths—so that when, in the various chambers, my family and guests are
warming themselves of a cold winter’s night, just before retiring,
then, though at the time they may not be thinking so, all their faces
mutually look towards each other, yea, all their feet point to one
centre; and, when they go to sleep in their beds, they all sleep round
one warm chimney, like so many Iroquois Indians, in the woods, round
their one heap of embers. And just as the Indians’ fire serves, not
only to keep them comfortable, but also to keep off wolves, and other
savage monsters, so my chimney, by its obvious smoke at top, keeps off
prowling burglars from the towns—for what burglar or murderer would
dare break into an abode from whose chimney issues such a continual
smoke—betokening that if the inmates are not stirring, at least fires
are, and in case of an alarm, candles may readily be lighted, to say
nothing of muskets.
- title
- Contemplation and Defense of the Chimney