I once read that the Devil studied Basque for seven years and only learned two words. — L. Sprague deCamp

But what argument could I offer? It was nothing but an irrational feeling—the kind of “premonition” we get from time to time but remember only on the rare occasions when it is fulfilled by the event. I had no evidence.

I fear me that the eighteenth century, which I have idealized all these years, never really existed. The real one was far dirtier, more narrow-minded, brutal, orthodox, and superstitious than I could have ever conceived without seeing it.

I passed that off as women’s intuition, which is wrong more often than not. People remember the times it works and forget those it fails.