some_thoughts_on_the_common_toad
no way to compare when less than two revisions
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
— | some_thoughts_on_the_common_toad [2015/05/08 21:10] (current) – created emily | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
+ | ====== Some thoughts on the common toad ====== | ||
+ | George Orwell | ||
+ | |||
+ | Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something–some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature–has told him that it is time to wake up: though a few toads appear to sleep the clock round and miss out a year from time to time–at any rate, I have more than once dug them up, alive and apparently well, in the middle of the summer. | ||
+ | |||
+ | At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice, what one might not at another time, that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet-rings, | ||
+ | |||
+ | For a few days after getting into the water the toad concentrates on building up his strength by eating small insects. Presently he has swollen to his normal size again, and then he hoes through a phase of intense sexiness. All he knows, at least if he is a male toad, is that he wants to get his arms round something, and if you offer him a stick, or even your finger, he will cling to it with surprising strength and take a long time to discover that it is not a female toad. Frequently one comes upon shapeless masses of ten or twenty toads rolling over and over in the water, one clinging to another without distinction of sex. By degrees, however, they sort themselves out into couples, with the male duly sitting on the female' | ||
+ | |||
+ | I mention the spawning of the toads because it is one of the phenomena of spring which most deeply appeal to me, and because the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from poets. But I am aware that many people do not like reptiles or amphibians, and I am not suggesting that in order to enjoy the spring you have to take an interest in toads. There are also the crocus, the missel-thrush, | ||
+ | |||
+ | As for spring, not even the narrow and gloomy streets round the Bank of England are quite able to exclude it. It comes seeping in everywhere, like one of those new poison gases which pass through all filters. The spring is commonly referred to as "a miracle", | ||
+ | |||
+ | Is it wicked to take a pleasure in spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This last idea is demonstrably false. Medieval literature, for instance, including the popular ballads, is full of an almost Georgian enthusiasm for Nature, and the art of agricultural peoples such as the Chinese and Japanese centre always round trees, birds, flowers, rivers, mountains. The other idea seems to me to be wrong in a subtler way. Certainly we ought to be discontented, | ||
+ | |||
+ | At any rate, spring is here, even in London N.1, and they can't stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who would stop me enjoying this if they could. But luckily they can't. So long as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, spring is still spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, |
some_thoughts_on_the_common_toad.txt · Last modified: 2015/05/08 21:10 by emily