Had it been up to Oscar Wilde, there would be no auction this week of the private property of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, or any such event. Writing a sonnet in 1895, "On the Sale by Auction" of John Keats' love letters to Fanny Brawne, Wilde compared the "brawlers of the auction mart" to the Roman soldiers who tossed dice for the garments of Jesus.
That may be a bit much, but the auctioning of the stuff of private lives is still a creepy little business. It creates a way for people to die a second time. First they...
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