‘Thoreau's Animals’ by Henry David Thoreau & Debby Cotter Kaspari & Geoff Wisner, 2017
“MAY 1, 1857
First notice the ring of the toad. As I am crossing the Common in front of the Meeting House. There is a cool and breezy south wind—and the ring of the first toad leaks into the general stream of sound, unnoticed by most, as the mill brook empties into the river and the voyager cannot tell if he is above or below its mouth. The bell was ringing for town meeting—and everyone heard it—but none heard this older and more universal bell rung by more native Americans all the land over. It is a sound from amid the waves of the aerial sea—that breaks on our ears with the surf of the air, a sound that is almost breathed with the wind taken into the lungs, instead of being heard by the ears. It comes from far over or through the troughs of the aerial sea—like a petrel—and who can guess by what pool the singer sits? whether behind the Meeting House horse-sheds, or over the Burying Ground Hill, or from the riverside. A new reign has commenced. Bufo the First has ascended to his throne, the surface of the earth, led into office by the south wind. Bufo the Double-chinned inflates his throat. Attend to his message. Take off your greatcoats, swains! and prepare for the summer campaign. Hop a few paces further toward your goals. The measures I shall advocate are warmth, moisture, and low-flying insects.”
(THE TEXT OF Thoreau’s Animals is drawn from the
fourteen-volume 1906 edition of The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau, edited by
Bradford Torrey and Francis H. Allen.)
George Orwell, ‘Some Thoughts on the Common Toad’:
“…I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and – to return to my first instance – toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.
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, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it…”
(Tribune, 12 April 1946; New Republic, 20 May 1946)
