You’ve made a wrong turn if…

…if your obituary refers to the “muses of your decadence.” In question here is Paul Verlaine:

“There is little of lasting value, however, in the rest of the verse and prose that Verlaine turned out in an unsuccessful effort to keep the wolf from a door shared usually with aging prostitutes such as Philomène Boudin and Eugénie Krantz, prominent among the muses of his decadence.”

This is one of the great “wrong turn” passages of all time, right up there with The Economist referring to Laurent Kabila in his obituary as “the corpulent despot.” I doubt any child ever said: “When I grow up, I want to be a corpulent despot.”