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THE WART HOG

Consider the Wart Hog. He has bags under his eyes and four tusks in his jaws and large protuberances, or bumps, all over his face. The Wart Hog cannot help it. He was born like that. The way people talk about him, you would think he did it on purpose. The Wart Hog is often called the ugliest of all animals, but the Rhinoceros is uglier because he is larger and there is more of him to be ugly.¹ We should try to forget the Wart Hog’s bad points and think of his good ones, only he hasn’t any. We cannot say, “After all, he has nice eyes,” for that would be a plain, downright falsehood. His eyes are small and shifty and mean-looking. Even if they were wonderful there would still be those bags under them. Yes, the Wart Hog knows he is ugly. You can’t look like that and not know it. If people screamed and ran whenever they saw you, wouldn’t you suspect that something was wrong?² Maybe the Wart Hog is not very sensitive. I hope not. I’m afraid nothing much can be done to improve the Wart Hog’s appearance.³ You might work on one or two Wart Hogs for years, but their children would be as ugly as ever, since beauty treatments are not inherited. You would see at a glance that they came of a long line of Wart Hogs.⁴ The father and mother Wart Hog do not live together much. Love is blind but not that blind. Sometimes they meet in the forest where the light is more flattering. The late Dr. Crisp of London believed that a cross between the Wart Hog and the Domestic Pig might produce a superior kind of bacon with a streak of fat and a streak of lean all the way through, but he does not seem to have tried it. Dr. Crisp liked his bacon just so.⁵ I am sorry to say that the Wart Hog has a nasty disposition. He isn’t very bright, either. Yet we can all learn something from him if we observe him closely and meditate upon what we see. The Wart Hog teaches us this useful lesson: Don’t be a Wart Hog.

1 I have moods when I think the Hippopotamus is ugly, too.

2 In southeastern Africa the Wart Hog is called Indhlovudawani, a name which means, “Oh, bother, there’s that awful animal again!”

3 A correspondent inquires, “If the Wart Hog would try to think beautiful thoughts all the time, would it help?” No.

4 Infant Wart Hogs resemble both sides of the family.

5 When the King of Ashantee sent Queen Victoria a Wart Hog in 1861, Her Majesty presented it to the Zoo almost instantly. Can you blame her?