HERMIT AND TROUBADOUR 143 



year ; then he shed his skin for the first time and thus, 

 insect-wise, grew larger. After a time he dug another 

 cell near another rootlet deeper in the ground ; but he 

 never exerted himself more than was necessary to 

 obtain the httle food that he needed. This idle life he 

 foimd entirely satisfactory, and the days grew into 

 months and the months into years. Only six times in 

 the seventeen years did our hermit change his clothes ; 

 and this was each time a necessity, since they had 

 become too small. Judging from what the senior 

 naturalist told me, I think this is six times more than 

 a Thibetan hermit changes his clothes in the same length 

 of time. 



What may be the meditations of a little hermit 

 cicada during all these years we cannot even imagine. 

 If any of the junior naturalists ever find out the secret, 

 they will be very popular indeed with the scientific men 

 called psychologists. However, if we may judge by 

 actions, the sixteenth summer after our hermit buried 

 himself he began to feel stirring in his bosom aspirations 

 toward a higher life. He surely had no memory of the 

 beautiful world he had abandoned in his babyhood, but 

 he became suddenly possessed with a desire to climb 

 upward and began digging his way toward the light. It 

 might prove a long journey through the hard earth ; for 

 dming the many years he may have reached the depth 



