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.
