This doesn't really do Toad justice but it's the best I can find just now. I found the following rather sad account of the creation of Toad from Times On Line (abridged)
The secret code of Toad
FOR bumptious self-importance, Toad of Toad Hall has few equals. Now letters going on display for the first time show how Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in The Willows, created the character as a cautionary tale for his wayward son Alastair.
Toad, known for his love of fast cars and the sound of his own voice, constantly gets into trouble, including being jailed, but always bounces back.
Chris Fletcher, curator of the display (in the Bodleian Library) , said: “The story of the errant Toad receiving moral instruction from the stern but big-hearted Badger is clearly designed to teach the badly behaved Alastair the difference between right and wrong.”
At the time of the letters Alastair was just seven but had already drawn an official complaint from park-keepers near the family home in London for kicking little girls.
They are addressed “My Dearest Mouse” — Grahame’s nickname for his son — and were sent while the boy was on holiday in Littlehampton with his nanny. He had refused to go unless his father sent stories.
During the summer, Alastair wrote to his parents from Littlehampton: “I have made a vow that I will run away to the Stage!!! as soon as I can!!!”
The last letter from his father, written in September, appears to gently mock Alastair’s intentions. In it Rat, Mole and Badger refuse to let Toad star in an evening of entertainment he has planned, with himself as the star turn, but admit they feel like “brutes” for squashing his plans.
The tales end with Toad resolving to be better, but Grahame once said: “Toad never really reformed; he was by nature incapable of it. But the subject is a painful one to pursue.”
Alastair’s troubled nature did not lead to a storybook ending either. He committed suicide two days short of his 20th birthday while a student at Oxford, throwing himself in front of a train.
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