t like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined,
"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind.
I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has happened
does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a
wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of
a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I
have not been wounded."

"It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who found an exquisite
pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism--"an extremely
interesting question. I fancy that the true explanation is this. It
often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an
inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their
absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of
style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an
impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes,
however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses
our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply
appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no
longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are
both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls
us. In the present case, what is it that has really happened? Someone
has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an
experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my
life. The people who have adored me--there have not been very many, but
there have been some--have always insisted on living on, long after I
had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have become
stout and tedious, and when I meet them they go in at once for
reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is!
And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb
the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details
are always vulgar."

"I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian.

"There is no necessity," rejoined his companion. "Life has always
poppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. I once wore
nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic
mourning for a romance that would not die. Ultimately, however, it did
die. I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice
the