by Charles Dickens (uncredited).
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.1 #7 (11 May 1850).
I won't bear it, and I don't see why I should.
Having begun to commit my grievances to writing, I have made up my mind to go on. You men have a saying, 'I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.' Very good. I may as well get into a false position with our proprietor for a ream of manuscript as a quire. Here goes!
I want to know who BUFFON was. I'll take my oath he wasn't a bird. Then what did he know about birds—especially about Ravens? He pretends to know all about Ravens. Who told him? Was his authority a Raven? I should think not. There never was a Raven yet, who committed himself, you'll find, if you look into the precedents.
There's a schoolmaster in dusty black knee-breeches and stockings, who comes and stares at our establishment every Saturday, and brings a lot of boys with him. He is always bothering the boys about BUFFON. That's the way I know what BUFFON says. He is a nice man, BUFFON; and you're all nice men together, ain't you?
What do you mean by saying that I am inquisitive and impudent, that I go everywhere, that I affront and drive off the dogs, that I play pranks on the poultry, and that I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook? That's what your friend BUFFON says, and you adopt him it appears. And what do you mean by calling me 'a glutton by nature, and a thief by habit?' Why, the identical boy who was being told this, on the strength of BUFFON, as he looked through our wires last Saturday, was almost out of his mind with pudding, and had got another boy's top in his pocket!
I tell you what. I like the idea of you men, writing histories of us, and settling what we are, and what we are not, and calling us any names you like best. What colors do you think you would show in, yourselves, if some of us were to take it into our heads to write histories of you? I know something of Astley's Theatre, I hope; I was about the stables there, a few years. Ecod! if you heard the observations of the Horses after the performance, you'd have some of the conceit taken out of you!
I don't mean to say that I admire the Cat. I don't admire her. On the whole, I have a personal animosity towards her. But, being obliged to lead this life, I condescend to hold communication with her, and I have asked her what her opinion is. She lived with an old lady of property before she came here, who had a number of nephews and nieces. She says she could show you up to that extent, after her experience in that situation, that even you would be hardly brazen enough to talk of cats being sly and selfish any more.
I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook, am I? Oh! I suppose you never do anything of this sort, yourselves? No politician among you was ever particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of a minister, eh? No clergyman in cultivating the good-will of a bishop, humph? No fortune-seeker in cultivating the good-will of a patron, hah? You have no toad-eating, no time-serving, no place-hunting, no lacqueyship of gold and silver sticks, or anything of that sort, I suppose? You haven't too many cooks, in short, whom you are all assiduously cultivating, till you spoil the general broth? Not you. You leave that to the Ravens.
Your friend BUFFON, and some more of you, are mighty ready, it seems, to give us characters. Would you like to hear about your own temper and forbearance? Ask the Dog. About your never overloading or ill-using a willing creature? Ask my brother-in-law's friend, the Camel, up in the Zoological. About your gratitude to, and your provision for, old servants? I wish I could refer you to the last Horse I dined off (he was very tough), up at a knacker's yard in Battle Bridge. About your mildness, and your abstinence from blows and cudgels? Wait till the Donkey's book comes out!
You are very fond of laughing at the parrot, I observe. Now, I don't care for the parrot. I don't admire the parrot's voice—it wants hoarseness. And I despise the parrot's livery—considering black the only true wear. I would as soon stick my bill into the parrot's breast as look at him. Sooner. But if you come to that, and you laugh at the parrot because the parrot says the same thing over and over again, don't you think you could get up a laugh at yourselves? Did you ever know a Cabinet Minister say of a flagrant job or great abuse, perfectly notorious to the whole country, that he had never heard a word of it himself, but could assure the honourable gentleman that every enquiry should be made? Did you ever hear a Justice remark, of any extreme example of ignorance, that it was a most extraordinary case, and he couldn't have believed in the possibility of such a case—when there had been, all through his life, ten thousand such within sight of his chimney-pots? Did you ever hear, among yourselves, anything approaching to a parrot repetition of the words, Constitution, Country, Public Service, Self-Government, Centralisation, Un-English, Capital, Balance of Power, Vested Interests, Corn, Rights of Labor, Wages, or so forth? Did you ever! No! Of course, you never!
But to come back to that fellow BUFFON. He finds us Ravens to be most extraordinary creatures. We have properties so remarkable, that you'd hardly believe it. 'A piece of money, a teaspoon, or a ring,' he says, 'are always tempting baits to our avarice. These we will slily seize upon; and, if not watched, carry to our favorite hole.' How odd!
Did you ever hear of a place called California? I have. I understand there are a number of animals over there, from all parts of the world, turning up the ground with their bills, grubbing under the water, sickening, moulting, living in want and fear, starving, dying, tumbling over on their backs, murdering one another, and all for what? Pieces of money that they want to carry to their favourite holes. Ravens every one of 'em! Not a man among 'em, bless you!
Did you ever hear of Railway Scrip? I have. We made a pretty exhibition of ourselves about that, we feathered creatures! Lord, how we went on about that Railway Scrip! How we fell down, to a bird, from the Eagle to the Sparrow, before a scarecrow, and worshipped it for the love of the bits of rag and paper fluttering from its dirty pockets! If it hadn't tumbled down in its rottenness, we should have clapped a title on it within ten years, I'll be sworn!—Go along with you, and your BUFFON, and don't talk to me!
'The Raven don't confine himself to petty depredations on the pantry or the larder'—here you are with your BUFFON again—'but he soars at more magnificent plunder, that he can neither exhibit nor enjoy. This must be very strange to you men—more than it is to the Cat who lived with that old lady, though!
Now, I am not going to stand this. You shall not have it all your own way. I am resolved that I won't have Ravens written about by men, without having men written about by Ravens—at all events by one Raven, and that's me. I shall put down my opinions about you. As leisure and opportunity serve, I shall collect a natural history of you. You are a good deal given to talk about your missions. That's my mission. How do you like it?
I am open to contributions from any animal except one of your set; bird, beast, or fish, may assist me in my mission, if he will. I have mentioned it to the Cat, intimated it to the Mouse, and proposed it to the Dog. The Owl shakes his head when I confide it to him, and says he doubts. He always did shake his head, and doubt. Whenever he brings himself before the public, he never does anything except shake his head and doubt. I should have thought he had got himself into a sufficient mess by doing that, when he roosted for a long time in the Court of Chancery. But he can't leave off. He's always at it.
Talking of missions, here's our Proprietor's Wife with a mission now! She has found out that she ought to go and vote at elections; ought to be competent to sit in Parliament; ought to be able to enter the learned professions—the army and navy, too, I believe. She has made the discovery that she has no business to be the comfort of our Proprietor's life, and to have the hold upon him of not being mixed up in all the janglings and wranglings of men, but is quite ill-used in being the solace of his home, and wants to go out speechifying. That's our Proprietor's Wife's new mission. Why, you never heard the Dove go on in that ridiculous way. She knows her true strength better.
You are mighty proud about your language; but it seems to me that you don't deserve to have words, if you can't make a better use of 'em. You know you are always fighting about 'em. Do you never mean to leave that off, and come to things a little? I thought you had high authority for not tearing each other's eyes out, about words. You respect it, don't you?
I declare I am stunned with words, on my perch in the Happy Family. I used to think the cry of a Peacock bad enough, when I was on sale in a menagerie, but I had rather live in the midst of twenty peacocks, than one Gorham and a Privy Council. In the midst of your wordy squabbling, you don't think of the lookers-on. But if you heard what I hear in my public thoroughfare, you'd stop a little of that noise, and leave the great bulk of the people something to believe in peace. You are overdoing it, I assure you.
I don't wonder at the Parrot picking words up and occupying herself with them. She has nothing else to do. There are no destitute parrots, no uneducated parrots, no foreign parrots in a contagious state of distraction, no parrots in danger of pestilence, no festering heaps of miserable parrots, no parrots crying to be sent away beyond the sea for dear life. But among you!—
Well! I repeat, I am not going to stand it. Tame submission to injustice is unworthy of a Raven. I croak the croak of revolt, and call upon the Happy Family to rally round me. You men have had it all your own way for a long time. Now, you shall hear a sentiment or two about yourselves.
I find my last communication gone from the corner where I hid it. I rather suspect the magpie, but he says, 'Upon his honor.' If Mr. Rowland Hill has got it, he will do me justice—more justice than you have done him lately, or I am mistaken in my man.