d a voice: aye, and no doubt
enjoyed life, and in harsh and fearful sounds praised the Creator at
the sunrising.

To prove the origin of the pig, let him out, and he will celebrate it
by making straight for the nearest mud and diving into it. So strange
is his aspect, so unreal to me, that it is almost as if the sunshine
falling upon him might dissolve him, and resolve him into his original
element. But no; there he is, perfectly real; as real as the good
Christians and philosophers who will eventually eat him. While he lies
there let me reflect in all charity on the disagreeable things I have
heard about him.

He is dirty, people say. Nay, is he as dirty (or, at least, as
complicated in his dirt) as his brother man can be? Let those who know
the dens of London give the answer. Leave the pig to himself, and he
is not so bad. He knows his mother mud is cleansing; he rolls partly
because he loves her and partly because he wishes to be clean.

He is greedy? In my mind's eye there rises the picture of human
gormandisers, fat-necked, with half-buried eyes and toddling step. How
long since the giant Gluttony was slain? or does he still keep his
monstrous table d'hote?

The pig pushes his brother from the trough? Why, that is a commonplace
of our life. There is a whole school of so-called philosophers and
political economists busied in elevating the pig's shove into a social
and political necessity.

He screams horribly if you touch him or his share of victuals? I have
heard a polite gathering of the best people turn senseless and rave at
a mild suggestion of Christian Socialism. He is bitter-tempered? God
knows, so are we. He has carnal desires? The worst sinner is man. He
will fight? Look to the underside of war. He is cruel? Well, boys do
queer things sometimes. For the rest, read the blacker pages of
history; not as they are served up for the schoolroom by private
national vanity, but after the facts.

If a cow or a sheep is sick or wounded and the pig can get at it, he
will worry it to death? So does tyranny with subject peoples.

He loves to lie in the sun among his brothers, idle and at his ease?
Aye, but suppose this one called himself a lord pig and lay in the sun
with a necklace of gold about his throat and jewels in his ears,
having found means to drive his brethren (merry little pigs and all)
out of the sun for his own benefit, what should we say of him then?

No; he has none of our cold cunning. He is al