"Nothing is in itself tragic, not even death."

My dear Arnold, I dimly remember your surname, but take leave to drop it now, so very delightful and friendshipful is the letter I have just had from you. But you mustn't expect from me "a diabolically ingenious defense" of Zuleika, any more than you would expect a woman who has just borne a child to be diabolically ingenious in defense of that child... "Madam, this baby is in many respects a very fine baby. I observe many inimitable touches of you in it. But, Madam, I am bound to say that its screams are more penetrating than a baby's screams ought to be. I notice in its complexion a mottled quality which jars my colour-sense. And I cannot help wishing it were" etc. etc. . . Will the young mother floor you in well-chosen words? With a rapt beatific smile she does but turn on her pillow, very sure that this baby is as perfect as a baby can be . . . Or perhaps, raising herself on one elbow, she gazes at you with an exquisite forgiveness and murmurs (mutatis mutandis) some such faltering words as these: "I admit that a humorous work cannot end with propriety on a tragic note. But I don't think Zuleika really has that kind of ending. Nothing is in itself tragic—not even death. Death in fiction is tragic or otherwise according to who it is that dies, against what manner of background, in what way described. —Max Beerbohm to Arnold Bennett, 10 January 1912