his
other possessions man is always to be blest. In the pig he has a
constant, present reward: because the pig _is_ and there is no question
as to what he shall be. He is pork and shall be salt pork, not spirit,
to our deep relief.

Instead of spirit the pig is clothed upon with lard, a fatty, opaque,
snow-white substance, that boils and grows limpid clear and flames with
heat; and while not so volatile and spirit-like as butter, nevertheless
it is one of earth's pure essences, perfected, sublimated, not after
the soul with suffering, but after the flesh with corn and solid
comfort--the most abundant of one's possessions, yet except to the pig
the most difficult of all one's goods to bestow.

The pig has no soul. I am not so sure of the flower in the crannied
wall, not so sure of the very stones in the wall, so long have they
been, so long shall be; but the pig--no one ever plucked up a pig from
his sty to say,--

"I hold you here squeal and all, in my hand,
Little pig--but _if_ I could understand
What you are, squeal and all, and all in all"--

No poet or philosopher ever did that. But they have kept pigs. Here
is Matthew Arnold writing to his mother about _Literature and Dogma_
and poems and--"The two pigs are grown very large and handsome, and
Peter Wood advises us to fatten them and kill our own bacon. We
consume a great deal of bacon, and Flu complains that it is dear and
not good, so there is much to be said for killing our own; but she does
not seem to like the idea."

"Very large and handsome "--this from the author of

"The evening comes, the fields are still!"

And here is his wife, again, not caring to have them killed, finding,
doubtless, a better use for them in the pen, seeing that Matthew often
went out there to scratch them.

Poets, I say, have kept pigs, for a change, I think, from their poetry.
For a big snoring pig is not a poem, whatever may be said of a little
roast pig; and what an escape from books and people and parlors (in
this country) is the feeding and littering and scratching of him! You
put on your old clothes for him. He takes you out behind the barn;
there shut away from the prying gaze of the world, and the stern eye,
conscience, you deliberately fill him, stuff him, fatten him, till he
grunts, then you scratch him to keep him grunting, yourself reveling in
the sight of the flesh indulged, as you dare not indulge any other
flesh. You would love to feed the wh