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