"Death, I know, is a strange and terrible thing, for youth; when you get as old as I, I hope you will look on death as nothing more than a release from mortality, a moving from one sphere to another, a step along the eternal line of progress.

I suppose that it is just as necessary that we pass out of the world by death as that we enter it by birth; and I further suppose that the terror with which death is vested is for the purpose of helping us to cling to this earth-life until our mission here is completed." Dorian did not speak; his eyes were on the marshlands.
"Imagine, Dorian, this world, just as it is, with all its sin and misery and without any death.

What would happen?
We would all, I fear, become so self-centered, so hardened in selfishness that it would be difficult for the gentle power of love to reach us; but now there is hardly a family that has not one or more of its members on the other side.

And these absent loved ones are anchors to our souls, tied to us by the never-ending cords of love and affection.

You, yourself, my boy, never have had until now many interests other than those of this life; now your interests are broadened to another world, and that's something worth while....