She felt as though she were present, against her will, at an interminable discussion […] with captious voices pleading, "Explain to me, why not? Give… - Mary McCarthy

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She felt as though she were present, against her will, at an interminable discussion […] with captious voices pleading, "Explain to me, why not? Give me one reason why not." The medieval temptations, with all the allures of gluttony and concupiscence could not, Martha thought, have been half so trying as the sheer dentist-drill boredom of listening to the arguments of the devil as a modern quasi-intellectual.