Note 227 — Chapter X · The Virtues and Vices of Women (continued 2)

Nature evidently intended it to be pleasant in all its stages: for all bodily functions, when healthy, are pleasant; their very pleasantness seems to be part of the design of preserving life on earth. He who has watched a female cat, as I have often done, from the moment of fertilization to the day when the kittens are weaned, can no longer entertain any doubt that the enormous amount of unpleasantness that civilized women have to undergo, in the process of child-bearing, is all the result of degeneration and disease. A female cat purrs even while the kittens are being born.