- description
- # Wife's Proposed Archway Through the Chimney
## Overview
This segment, titled "Wife's Proposed Archway Through the Chimney," is an excerpt from the short story "I and My Chimney." It details a specific architectural proposal made by the narrator's wife, focusing on her idea for an archway or tunnel to pass through the house's chimney. The segment is part of the larger collection "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)".
## Context
This segment is extracted from the short story "[I and My Chimney](arke:01KG8AJ72QDX8N8STJ3550X2NW)," which was originally contained within the file "i_and_my_chimney.txt". The story explores the narrator's relationship with his house, particularly its central chimney, and the eccentricities of his wife. This segment follows the discussion of her initial, more ambitious plans and precedes a description of her escalating schemes and the house's labyrinthine nature.
## Contents
The text describes the narrator's wife's modified architectural plan, which involved creating an archway or tunnel through the chimney. This proposed passage would connect the front door to the dining room, carefully navigating around fireplaces and the main flue. The narrator humorously compares this ambitious project to Nero's canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, suggesting a grand but perhaps impractical vision. The segment highlights the wife's innovative, albeit unconventional, ideas for modifying their home.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:59.787Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Wife's Proposed Archway Through the Chimney
- end_line
- 525
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:36.358Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 507
- text
- To return now to the chimney. Upon being assured of the futility of her
proposed hall, so long as the obstacle remained, for a time my wife was
for a modified project. But I could never exactly comprehend it. As far
as I could see through it, it seemed to involve the general idea of a
sort of irregular archway, or elbowed tunnel, which was to penetrate
the chimney at some convenient point under the staircase, and carefully
avoiding dangerous contact with the fireplaces, and particularly
steering clear of the great interior flue, was to conduct the
enterprising traveler from the front door all the way into the
dining-room in the remote rear of the mansion. Doubtless it was a bold
stroke of genius, that plan of hers, and so was Nero’s when he schemed
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.
- title
- Wife's Proposed Archway Through the Chimney