“Meredith is a prose Browning. So is Browning.”

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

“Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.”

“Some six weeks agoI was allowed by the doctor to have white bread to eat instead of the coarseblack or brown bread of ordinary prison fare. It is a great delicacy. It willsound strange that dry bread could possibly be a delicacy to any one. To meit is so much so that at the close of each meal I carefully eat whatever crumbsmay be left on my tin plate, or have fallen on the rough towel that one usesas a cloth so as not to soil one’s table; and I do so not from hunger—I getnow quite sufficient food—but simply in order that nothing should bewasted of what is given to me. So one should look on love.”

“The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirp by the wall, and like a blue thread a long, thin dragonfly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what was coming.”

“There is no good talking to him," said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; "no good at all, for he has gone away.""Well, that is his loss, not mine," answered the Rocket. "I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.""Then you should definitely lecture on Philosophy," said the Dragon-fly.”

“Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.”