Long since, in this part of our circumjacent wood, I had found out for
myself a little hermitage. It was a kind of leafy cave, high upward
into the air, among the midmost branches of a white-pine tree. A wild
grapevine, of unusual size and luxuriance, had twined and twisted
itself up into the tree, and, after wreathing the entanglement of its
tendrils around almost every bough, had caught hold of three or four
neighboring trees, and married the whole clump with a perfectly
inextricable knot of polygamy. Once, while sheltering myself from a
summer shower, the fancy had taken me to clamber up into this seemingly
impervious mass of foliage.
The branches yielded me a passage, and
closed again beneath, as if only a squirrel or a bird had passed. Far
aloft, around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest for
Robinson Crusoe or King Charles! A hollow chamber of rare seclusion
had been formed by the decay of some of the pine branches, which the
vine had lovingly strangled with its embrace, burying them from the
light of day in an aerial sepulchre of its own leaves. It cost me but
little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and open loopholes through
the verdant walls. Had it ever been my fortune to spend a honeymoon, I
should have thought seriously of inviting my bride up thither, where
our next neighbors would have been two orioles in another part of the
clump.
It was an admirable place to make verses, tuning the rhythm to the
breezy symphony that so often stirred among the vine leaves; or to
meditate an essay for "The Dial," in which the many tongues of Nature
whispered mysteries, and seemed to ask only a little stronger puff of
wind to speak out the solution of its riddle. Being so pervious to
air-currents, it was just the nook, too, for the enjoyment of a cigar.
This hermitage was my one exclusive possession while I counted myself a
brother of the socialists. It symbolized my individuality, and aided
me in keeping it inviolate.
None ever found me out in it, except,
once, a squirrel. I brought thither no guest, because, after
Hollingsworth failed me, there was no longer the man alive with whom I
could think of sharing all. So there I used to sit, owl-like, yet not
without liberal and hospitable thoughts. I counted the innumerable
clusters of my vine, and fore-reckoned the abundance of my vintage. It
gladdened me to anticipate the surprise of the Community, when, like an
allegorical figure of rich October, I should make my appearance, with
shoulders bent beneath the burden of ripe grapes, and some of the
crushed ones crimsoning my brow as with a bloodstain.