What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done. Almost overnight we could become rich and free. "Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labor would be our own. As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond. You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. To that horror we all must come-cows, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. I am twelve years old and have had over four hundred children. For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. "And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their natural span. In return for your four confinements and all your labor in the fields, what have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall? And you, Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who should have been the support and pleasure of your old age? Each was sold at a year old-you will never see one of them again. And you hens, how many eggs have you laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens? The rest have all gone to market to bring in money for Jones and his men. You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have you given during this last year? And what has happened to that milk which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies. Our labortills the soil, our dung fertilizes it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. "Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labor is stolen from us by human beings. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep-and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. "But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. "Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. It is about this that I wish to speak to you. I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. "Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. Next, read it again, this time marking it for persuasive appeals. The first time, mark the text with synonyms and summaries.
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