I and My Chimney | Page 9

years that are gone, taking no thought for the
morrow, and looking for no new thing from any person or quarter whatever, I have not a
single scheme or expectation on earth, save in unequal resistance of the undue
encroachment of hers.
Old myself, I take to oldness in things; for that cause mainly loving old Montague, and
old cheese, and old wine; and eschewing young people, hot rolls, new books, and early
potatoes and very fond of my old claw-footed chair, and old club-footed Deacon White,
my neighbor, and that still nigher old neighbor, my betwisted old grape-vine, that of a
summer evening leans in his elbow for cosy company at my window-sill, while I, within
doors, lean over mine to meet his; and above all, high above all, am fond of my
high-mantled old chimney. But she, out of the infatuate juvenility of hers, takes to
nothing but newness; for that cause mainly, loving new cider in autumn, and in spring, as

if she were own daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, fairly raving after all sorts of salads and
spinages, and more particularly green cucumbers (though all the time nature rebukes such
unsuitable young hankerings in so elderlv a person, by never permitting such things to
agree with her), and has an itch after recently- discovered fine prospects (so no graveyard
be in the background), and also after Sweden-borganism, and the Spirit Rapping
philosophy, with other new views, alike in things natural and unnatural; and immortally
hopeful, is forever making new flower-beds even on the north side of the house where the
bleak mountain wind would scarce allow the wiry weed called hard-hack to gain a
thorough footing; and on the road-side sets out mere pipe-stems of young elms; though
there is no hope of any shade from them, except over the ruins of her great
granddaughter's gravestones; and won't wear caps, but plaits her gray hair; and takes the
Ladies' Magazine for the fashions; and always buys her new almanac a month before the
new year; and rises at dawn; and to the warmest sunset turns a cold shoulder; and still
goes on at odd hours with her new course of history, and her French, and her music; and
likes a young company; and offers to ride young colts; and sets out young suckers in the
orchard; and has a spite against my elbowed old grape-vine, and my club-footed old
neighbor, and my claw-footed old chair, and above all, high above all, would fain
persecute, until death, my high-mantled old chimney. By what perverse magic, I a
thousand times think, does such a very autumnal old lady have such a very vernal young
soul? When I would remonstrate at times, she spins round on me with, "Oh, don't you
grumble, old man (she always calls me old man), it's I, young I, that keep you from
stagnating." Well, I suppose it is so. Yea, after all, these things are well ordered. My wife,
as one of her poor relations, good soul, intimates, is the salt of the earth, and none the less
the salt of my sea, which otherwise were unwholesome. She is its monsoon, too, blowing
a brisk gale over it, in the one steady direction of my chimney.
Not insensible of her superior energies, my wife has frequently made me propositions to
take upon herself all the responsibilities of my affairs. She is desirous that, domestically,
I should abdicate; that, renouncing further rule, like the venerable Charles V, I should
retire intoo some sort of monastery. But indeed, the chimney excepted, I have little
authority to lay down. By my wife's ingenious application of the principle that certain
things belong of right to female jurisdiction, I find myself, through my easy compliances,
insensibly stripped by degrees of one masculine prerogative after another. In a dream I go
about my fields, a sort of lazy, happy-go-lucky, good-for-nothing, loafing old Lear. Only
by some sudden revelation am I reminded who is over me; as year before last, one day
seeing in one corner of the premises fresh deposits of mysterious boards and timbers, the
oddity of the incident at length begat serious meditation. "Wife," said I, "whose boards
and timbers are those I see near the orchard there? Do you know anything about them,
wife? Who put them there? You know I do not like the neighbors to use my land that way,
they should ask permission first."
She regarded me with a pitying smile.
"Why, old man, don't you know I am building a new barn? Didn't you know that, old
man?"
This is the poor old lady who was accusing me of tyrannizing over her.
To return now to the chimney. Upon being assured of the futility of her proposed hall, so
long as the obstacle remained, for