Yes, I would certainly keep a pig. The idea came to me while I was
digging. I find that there is no occupation that stimulates thought
more than digging if you choose your soil well. Digging in the London
clay does not stimulate thought; it deadens thought. It is good
exercise for the body, but it is no exercise for the mind. You can't
play with your fancies as you plunge your spade into this stiff and
stubborn medium. But in the light, porous soil of my garden on the
chalk hills digging goes with a swing and a rhythm that set the
thoughts singing like the birds. I feel I could win battles when I'm
digging, or write plays or lyrics that would stun the world, or make
speeches that would stir a post to action. Ideas seem as plentiful as
blackberries in the autumn, and if only I could put down the spade and
capture them red-hot I feel that I could make _The Star_ simply blaze
with glory.
It was in one of these prolific moments that I thought of the pig.
Like all great ideas there was something inevitable about it. The
calculations of Le Verrier and Adams proved the existence of Neptune
before that orb was discovered. They knew it was there before they
found it. My pig was born without my knowledge. In the furnace of my
mind he took shape merely by the friction of facts. He was a sort of
pig by divine right. It happened thus. In the midst of my digging Jim
Squire, passing up the lane, had paused on the other side of the hedge
to discuss last night's frost. I straightened my back for a talk, and
naturally we talked about potatoes. If you want to get the best out of
Jim Squire you must touch him on potatoes. There are some people who
find Jim an unresponsive and suspicious yokel. That is because they do
not know how to draw him out. Mention potatoes, or carrots, or the
best way of dealing with slugs, or the right manure for a hot-bed, or
any sensible subject like these, and he simply flows with wisdom and
urbanity.
He observed that I should have a tidy few potatoes, what with the
garden I was digging, and the piece I'd turned over in the orchard, and
that there bit o' waste land on the hillside which he _had_ heard as I
was getting Mestur Wistock to plough up for me. Yes, there'd be a
niceish lot. And he _did_ hear I was going to set King Edwards and
Arran Chiefs. Rare and fine potatoes they were too. He had some King
Edwards last year--turned out wonderful, they did. One root he pulled
up weighed 12 lb. Yes, Miss Mary weighed 'em for him in the scale at
the farm--just for a hobby like as you might say. It was like this.
He'd seen a bit in the paper about a man as had 8 lb. on a root, and he
(Jim) said to himself, "This root beats that by a long chalk _I_ know."
And Miss Mary come by and she said she'd weigh 'em. And she did. And
it was 12 lb. full, she said. If anything, she said, 'twas a shade
over. _She_ said as they'd have took a prize anywhere--that's what she
said.... Well, you couldn't have too many potatoes these days.
Wonderful good food they were, for man _and_ pig....
As he went on up the lane my spade took up that word like a refrain.
At every rhythmic stroke it seemed to cry "pig" with increasing
vehemence.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a new planet swims into his ken.
A pig? Why not?--and I straightened my back again. I felt that
something prodigious was taking shape. My eye wandered across the
orchard. There were the hives standing in a row--three of them, to be
increased to twelve as fast as the expert, who has set up her
carpenter's shop in the barn, can get the parts to put together. And
beyond the hives three sheds--one for poultry, one for the hot-bed for
mushrooms, the third--why, the very thing.... Concrete the floor and
it would be a very palace for a pig.
I took a turn up the garden to look this thing squarely in the face,
and at the gate I saw the farmer's wife coming down the lane. We
stopped, and she talked about her cows and about an order she had got
from the Government to plough up more pasture, and then--as if echoing
the very thought that was drumming in my head--about the litter of pigs
she was expecting and of her wish to get the cottagers to keep pigs.
Why, this was a very conspiracy of circumstance, thought I. It seemed
as though man and events alike were engaged in a plot to make me keep a
pig.
With an air of idle curiosity I encouraged the farmer's wife to talk on
the thrilling theme, and she responded with enthusiasm. The pig, I
found, was a grossly maligned animal. It had lain uncomplainingly
under imputations that were foul slanders on its innocent and lovable
character. Yes, lovable. She had had pigs who were as affectionate as
any dog--pigs that followed her about in sheer friendliness. And as
for the charge of filthiness, who was to blame? We gave them dirty
styes and then called them dirty pigs. But the pig was a clean animal,
loved cleanliness, thrived on cleanliness. It was man the dirty who
kept the pig foul and then called him unclean. And what a profitable
animal. She had had a sow which had produced 108 pigs and 102 of them
came to maturity. What an example to Shoreditch, I said. Perhaps they
don't give them clean styes in Shoreditch, she said. No, I replied,
they give them dirty styes....
I went indoors, suffused with the vision of the transfigured pig, the
affectionate, cleanly, intelligent pig, and took up a paper, and the
first thing my eye encountered was an article on "The Cottager's Pig."
I read it with the frenzy of a new religion and rose filled to the brim
with lore about the animal to whose existence (except in the shape of
bacon) I had been indifferent so long. And now, fully seized with the
idea, it seemed that the world talked of nothing but pig. It was only
that my ears were unstopped and my eyes unsealed by an awakened
curiosity; but it seemed to me that the pig had suddenly been born into
the universe, and that the air was filled with the rumour of his
coming. I encountered the subject at every turn. In the _Times_ I
read a touching lament over the disappearance of the little black pig.
Elsewhere I saw a facsimile letter from Lord Rhondda, in which he
declared his loyalty to the pig and denied that he had ever spoken evil
of him.
It was a patriotic duty to keep a pig. He was an ally in the war. I
saw the whole German General Staff turning pale at his name, as Mazarin
was said to turn pale at the name of Cromwell. Arriving in town I met
the eminent politician Mr. R---- and he began to tell me how he had
started all his cottagers in the North growing pig. By nightfall I
could have held my own without shame or discredit in any company of pig
dealers, and in my dreams I saw the great globe itself resting on the
back, not of an elephant, but of a pig with a beautiful curly tail.
* * * * *
Later: I have ordered the pig.