nquisitive
creatures. When they are driven from place to place, they are not
gentle or meek, like cows and sheep, who follow the line of least
resistance. The pig is suspicious and cautious; he is sure that there
is some uncomfortable plot on foot, not wholly for his good, which he
must try to thwart if he can. Then, too, he never seems quite at home
in his deplorably filthy surroundings; he looks at you, up to the knees
in ooze, out of his little eyes as if he would live in a more cleanly
way if he were permitted. Pigs always remind me of the mariners of
Homer, who were transformed by Circe; there is a dreadful humanity
about them, as if they were trying to endure their base conditions
philosophically, waiting for their release.' All this I entreat my
critic to lay well to heart before he judges me too severely for
selecting Lily as my heroine.

I suppose the truth is, if only my supercilious critics could be
trusted to tell the whole truth, that Lily is not good-looking enough
for them. But that, again, is all a question of taste. Beauty is
relative and not absolute. My critics may themselves be at fault. The
real trouble may be, not want of comeliness in Lily, but a sad lack of
appreciation in themselves. I notice that the champion Yorkshire sow
at the Sydney Show this year was Mr. E. Jenkins' 'Queen of Beauty'; and
as I gazed upon her photograph and noted her alluring name, I thought
once more of Lily and laughed in my sleeve at my critics. I once spent
a week with an old Lincolnshire gentleman at Kirwee, in New Zealand;
and almost before I had been able to bolt the meal that awaited my
arrival, he begged me to come and see the pigs. And at the very first
animal to which we came my happy host rubbed his hands in an ecstasy of
pride, whilst his eyes fairly sparkled. 'Bean't he a beauty?' he asked
me excitedly. And I answered confidently that he was. I could see at
a glance that the pig was a beauty _to him_; and if he was a beauty to
him, he _was_ a beauty, and there remained no more to be said. I
remember reading a story of two ministers who met beneath the
hospitable roof of an old-fashioned English farm-house. One of them no
sooner approached the table than he uttered an exclamation of delight.
Picking up one of the cups, he spoke of the wonderful beauty of the
china. He held the plates up to the light and asked the others to see
how thin they were, and went into ecstasies over the wondrous old c