I imagine my house, as it is shrouded in wood and surrounded by trees, to be a cabin like Thoreau's cabin in Concord, not 200 years nor 20 miles hence. Indeed, my house already had stood a generation before he started building his and ruminating around that pond. To tell the world of my apprenticeship to him, I shall carve his words above my door, "I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest."