Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays

by George Orwell

I know by experience that a favourable ref erence to “Nature” in one of my articles is liable to bring me abusive letters, and though the keyword 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. This is often backed up by the statement that a love of Nature is a foible of urbanised people who have no notion what Nature is really like.