Perhaps the greatest quip in history comes from the poet and novelist Oscar Wilde. Wilde said: “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.” Wilde was reacting to the cloying sentimentality and mawkishness in Charles Dickens’s depiction (in the serialized novel The Old Curiosity Shop) of a saintly girl dying slowly … very slowly … slow enough to sell lots of newspapers. (Dickens got paid by the word.)

I had a similar reaction reading a piece of recent real news at The Blaze:

A California baker – who identified as an anarchist and social justice advocate – died after she was the victim of a brutal theft. Family and friends don’t want the criminals who are linked to her death to be prosecuted because that would allegedly go against the woman’s values.

Jennifer Angel went to a Wells Fargo bank branch in Oakland on Monday afternoon. A car pulled in front of her vehicle and blocked her from leaving, Angel’s fiance, Ocean Mottley, told the San Francisco Chronicle.