Some Thoughts on the Common Nature Poem
George Orwell, and The Smashing Pumpkins.
“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 spring, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water.”1
Believe it or not, this sentence begins an article written by George Orwell, the famed writer who, in the same year, declared that he’d never written anything worth reading that wasn’t political.2 The piece is titled “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad,” and while Orwell couldn’t seem to help but throw in some semblance of a political point, these allegedly ‘important’ segments of the essay are far from its most powerful. The article is about the coming of springtime, and the way that it manages to rejuvenate the spirit each year, just when it starts to seem like winter will last forever.
Orwell was not a sentimental writer. His books were pragmatic, politically-motivated. More personal themes such as love, friendship, or essentially human emotion of any sort only appeared in novels, and even then were an afterthought compared to each novel’s overt political message. His stated purpose for writing was to “make political writing into an art,”3 and while he certainly succeeded, I sometimes feel like he’s absent from his own writing. In addition to being the man who wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell was a husband and father. He enjoyed gardening, fishing, and taking in the sights of nature. A reader of his acclaimed works would never know this.
This isn’t something easily ascertained from his writing. It seems like something he consciously restrained. This may have had something to do with his audience, whose interest in his writing was primarily political.4 I think, though, that Orwell shared the notion that his politics were the most important part of him. He declared that “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”5
Thankfully, sometimes he could not help but to let some of these vulnerabilities peek through. Nature, and springtime in particular, are referenced throughout Orwell’s writing. Nineteen Eighty-Four begins on “a bright cold day in April.” In his 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, an afternoon in the countryside provides a brief reprieve from the protagonist’s otherwise brutal life of poverty in London. A similar day is shared by Nineteen Eighty-Four’s protagonists. Nevertheless, Orwell often acts as though he has to apologize for his love of nature, as he makes clear in “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad.” Consider this excerpt from the essay:
“Is it wicked to take a pleasure in Spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird’s song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of left-wing newspapers call a class angle?”
His answer to this question is a resounding “no,” but the reasons he gives for this are, predictably, political. He asserts that, if one wishes to fight for their freedom, the greatest thing one can do is enjoy simple pleasures like springtime, which cannot be taken away except through outright imprisonment. There’s very little in the essay about pleasure being worthwhile for its own sake. Instead, it is dotted with arguments such as this:
“[B]y 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.”
It is a strange, calculated ode to nature. Yet buried within it is the very real assertion that there is something intrinsically meaningful about springtime, something that has compelled writers throughout history to write in admiration.
Orwell’s decision to use the common toad to illustrate the beauty of springtime was a playful, delightfully offbeat choice. In his words: “The toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boast from the poets.” I like this about the essay. It makes you think. Its chosen mascot is one that most people wouldn’t consider, and that some might ordinarily find repulsive. Yet in the essay’s descriptions of toads mating and tadpoles populating the water, Orwell somehow captures the most beautiful part of springtime—the way it reminds you of the cycle of life, the endless loop of birth and death which is sometimes sad, yet still contains within it the eternal resurgence of hope. Orwell writes:
“The spring is commonly referred to as “a miracle,” and during the past five or six years this worn-out figure of speech has taken on a new lease of life. After the sort of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time Winter is going to be permanent. But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured.”
1940 marked the outbreak of World War II, and since then, the English people were subjected to constant threats to their safety and their livelihood. It is no surprise that death (the phase of life’s cycle which winter embodies) seemed all-encompassing. Yet this somehow amplified springtime’s glory. It is impervious to war, to totalitarianism. No matter who owns the land, in March the grass gets greener, and little drops of yellow start dotting the landscape. There will always be rebirth. There will always be change.
I think this change is what affords springtime most of its impact. It is no coincidence that spring and fall are so many peoples’ favorite seasons. Why they inspire so much literature. They are markers of the earth’s vitality, and thus they are the most vibrant, and most distinctive. Would spring’s flowers or autumn’s golden leaves be nearly as impactful if they lasted forever? Each year, the daffodil is the flower that makes the greatest impression on me. This isn’t because it’s the most beautiful flower. It is simply the first. Change is what lends it its power.
There’s a Smashing Pumpkins song titled “Springtimes” which deals with this very concept. The song, which concludes Act II of the rock opera ATUM, is about change, the ushering in of a new era. It’s a beautiful song, a quiet moment of soft singing and acoustic guitar on an otherwise fast-paced album. Interestingly, the song is kind of sad. It follows a death, and documents a parting of ways for characters who had previously shared a journey. Like the season from which it derived its title, it marks a turning point, a transition period. In all its beauty, it evokes a strange sadness.
The song’s backstory mirrors this. On his way to the studio to record the guitar solo for the song, Billy Corgan learned of his father’s death. Caught in that weird haze after you’ve heard earth-shattering news but before it’s really sunk in, Billy decided to work on the song anyway. The whole situation mirrored the song’s memorable lyric:
“It’s springtime out there where we part.”
What an interesting take on the season—a remarkably serious counterpart to Orwell’s “Thoughts on the Common Toad.” The title “Springtimes” would suggest birth and new beginnings, yet the song is clearly an ending, both in the album’s plot and in the life of its songwriter. Perhaps this is a commentary on the balance of all things, the way that every beginning is actually an end and, conversely, every end a beginning. Perhaps there is a kind of rebirth that takes place upon death or upon parting. Life goes on; the end of one era necessitates the beginning of another. Perhaps the song is making known some type of universal truth.
There’s certainly something mystical about the song. In his Thirty-Three podcast discussing each song on the album, Billy described something interesting happening during its final recording session, which commenced shortly after the news of his father’s death. He recorded the song’s guitar solo once, and then decided to do another take. Afterwards, as a shot in the dark, he decided to layer the two tracks on top of one another, and miraculously, they lined up perfectly. Listening to the song, it sounds like two guitarists are playing simultaneously. Sometimes the two merge together, and it sounds like one guitar. Billy’s father was a great guitarist. Perhaps his spirit lingered around for a while, and managed to pull this off. Life is full of little miracles.
The song was recorded during the winter, and was released during winter, too. It’s a song about goodbyes, deeply tied up with death. On paper, it seems like it would be a ‘wintertime’ song, yet it is somehow unmistakably spring. It gives me that feeling I get when the grass starts getting greener and the bare trees reveal their first buds of purple and pink and white. It’s a reminder—not merely that life is beautiful, but that it is dynamic. The season moves so quickly. The branches are still bare, and wisps of green start poking through the yellow grass, and then before you know it the daffodils are wilting and the trees are in full bloom, and the streets are a sea of purple and pink and green and blue and white. And tied up in all of this is the knowledge that these blooms, too, are fleeting. Some petals already line the ground, and the temperature is rising fast.
From 1943 to 1947, George Orwell wrote a column for a magazine called Tribune, titled “As I Please.” As the name suggests, Orwell wrote in the column about anything he wished, from literature to politics to simple observations. His last “As I Please” article appeared on March 28th, 1947, and its final section began as follows:
“For the last five minutes I have been gazing out of the window into the square, keeping a sharp look-out for signs of spring. There is a thinnish patch in the clouds with a faint hint of blue behind it, and on a sycamore tree there are some things that look as if they might be buds. Otherwise it is still winter. But don’t worry! Two days ago, after a careful search in Hyde Park, I came on a hawthorn bush that was definitely in bud, and some birds, though not actually singing, were making noises like an orchestra tuning up. Spring is coming after all, and recent rumours that this was the beginning of another Ice Age were unfounded. In only three weeks’ time we shall be listening to the cuckoo, which usually gives tongue about the fourteenth of April. Another three weeks after that, and we shall be basking under blue skies, eating ices off barrows and neglecting to lay up fuel for next winter.”
How appropriate, his urging of readers not to worry. As he remarked in “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad,” each winter always seems like the last, and optimism seems impossible in times of darkness. When these articles were written, World War II had just ended, and futures remained uncertain. The threats of totalitarianism and the atomic bomb loomed over everyone, and the dream of ‘democratic socialism’ that had fueled Orwell’s entire writing career was starting to look more hopeless by the day. His health was declining—he finished 1947 in a hospital bed, and would remain ill until his death in January of 1950. Yet he appreciated the little pleasures until the end (even if he wouldn’t fess up to it in his nonfiction). In a bleak world, optimism is an act of resistance. In a world that urges you to walk blindly and deny truth, mere observation is an uprising. It’s easy to forget, of course. That’s why we need the springtime. It catches our eye, and reminds us that life is interesting and unique and vibrant and changing and real. It’s painful, sometimes. But just like the spring would be powerless without the winter it follows, life’s pain brings meaning to its joy.
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From Orwell’s 1946 essay Why I Write:
“I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.”
Ibid.
“I know by experience that a favourable reference to “Nature” in one of my articles is liable to bring me abusive letters, and though the key-word in these letters is usually “sentimental”, two ideas seem to be mixed up in them. One is that any pleasure in the actual process of life encourages a sort of political quietism. People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous.”
(from “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad”)
I’m a new follower and already a huge fan of George Orwell & Thinking Man!
I’m even loving Billy G Corgan !!
Truly great works! Keep up the great work! Thanks 🙏 Kind Regards, GJM!