s is one of those sayings which men love to repeat
whether they are true or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and
adhere more firmly with age, and it would take many blows with a trowel
to clean an old wiseacre of them. Many of the villages of Mesopotamia
are built of second-hand bricks of a very good quality, obtained from
the ruins of Babylon, and the cement on them is older and probably
harder still. However that may be, I was struck by the peculiar
toughness of the steel which bore so many violent blows without being
worn out. As my bricks had been in a chimney before, though I did not
read the name of Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out its many fireplace
bricks as I could find, to save work and waste, and I filled the spaces
between the bricks about the fireplace with stones from the pond shore,
and also made my mortar with the white sand from the same place. I
lingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house.
Indeed, I worked so deliberately, that though I commenced at the ground
in the morning, a course of bricks raised a few inches above the floor
served for my pillow at night; yet I did not get a stiff neck for it
that I remember; my stiff neck is of older date. I took a poet to board
for a fortnight about those times, which caused me to be put to it for
room. He brought his own knife, though I had two, and we used to scour
them by thrusting them into the earth. He shared with me the labors
of cooking. I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by
degrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated
to endure a long time. The chimney is to some extent an independent
structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the
heavens; even after the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and
its importance and independence are apparent. This was toward the end of
summer. It was now November.

The north wind had already begun to cool the pond, though it took many
weeks of steady blowing to accomplish it, it is so deep. When I began to
have a fire at evening, before I plastered my house, the chimney carried
smoke particularly well, because of the numerous chinks between the
boards. Yet I passed some cheerful evenings in that cool and airy
apartment, surrounded by the rough brown boards full of knots, and
rafters with the bark on high overhead. My house never pleased my eye so
much after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess th