The birth of a child is looked upon as a painful subject on which it is
kinder not to touch: the illness of the mother is carefully concealed
until the necessity for signing the birth-formula (of which hereafter)
renders further secrecy impossible, and for some months before the event
the family live in retirement, seeing very little company. When the
offence is over and done with, it is condoned by the common want of
logic; for this merciful provision of nature, this buffer against
collisions, this friction which upsets our calculations but without which
existence would be intolerable, this crowning glory of human invention
whereby we can be blind and see at one and the same moment, this blessed
inconsistency, exists here as elsewhere; and though the strictest writers
on morality have maintained that it is wicked for a woman to have
children at all, inasmuch as it is wrong to be out of health that good
may come, yet the necessity of the case has caused a general feeling in
favour of passing over such events in silence, and of assuming their non-
existence except in such flagrant cases as force themselves on the public
notice. Against these the condemnation of society is inexorable, and if
it is believed that the illness has been dangerous and protracted, it is
almost impossible for a woman to recover her former position in society.
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