worse than a beast. A woman cannot look upon a child otherwise than as
a pleasure. It is true that it is painful to give birth to it, but what
little hands! . . . Oh, the little hands! Oh, the little feet! Oh, its
smile! Oh, its little body! Oh, its prattle! Oh, its hiccough! In a
word, it is a feeling of animal, sensual maternity. But as for any idea
as to the mysterious significance of the appearance of a new human being
to replace us, there is scarcely a sign of it.

"Nothing of it appears in all that is said and done. No one has any
faith now in a baptism of the child, and yet that was nothing but a
reminder of the human significance of the newborn babe.

"They have rejected all that, but they have not replaced it, and there
remain only the dresses, the laces, the little hands, the little
feet, and whatever exists in the animal. But the animal has neither
imagination, nor foresight, nor reason, nor a doctor.

"No! not even a doctor! The chicken droops its head, overwhelmed, or the
calf dies; the hen clucks and the cow lows for a time, and then these
beasts continue to live, forgetting what has happened.

"With us, if the child falls sick, what is to be done, how to care for
it, what doctor to call, where to go? If it dies, there will be no more
little hands or little feet, and then what is the use of the sufferings
endured? The cow does not ask all that, and this is why children are a
source of misery. The cow has no imagination, and for that reason cannot
think how it might have saved the child if it had done this or that, and
its grief, founded in its physical being, lasts but a very short time.
It is only a condition, and not that sorrow which becomes exaggerated
to the point of despair, thanks to idleness and satiety. The cow has not