B956 <=> B958 [BTG XLII Beelzebub in America, p. 957]

“When I began to explain to you, my boy, the causes of the disharmony in the presences of these American beings of the functions of the transformation of the first being-food and when I mentioned the ‘comfortable seats’ invented by them, I said among other things, that these strange three-brained beings who have taken your fancy and who breed on the planet Earth, were ‘again’ striving to perform even this indispensable being-function of theirs with the greatest possible sensation of self-satisfaction for themselves. I said ‘again’ because previously in various periods of the flow of time, these strange three-brained beings there who have taken your fancy had already several times introduced something similar into the usages of their ordinary existence.

“I remember very clearly one of those periods when the beings of that time, who, by the way, according to the notions of your contemporary favorites, were nothing but ancient ‘savages,’ invented every possible kind of convenience for performing this same although prosaic yet indispensable being-need, on account of which these contemporary Americans, who in their naivete consider themselves already civilized to the ne plus ultra, have invented these comfortable seats in their water closets.