Crosby's poetry possibly gave the best clue to his motives. Death was "the hand that opens the door to our cage the home we instinctively fly to." His death mortified proper society. Crosby's biographer Geoffrey Wolff wrote, "He had meant to do it; it was no mistake; it was not a joke. If anything of Harry Crosby commands respect, perhaps even awe, it was the unswerving character of his intention." Crosby's death, given the macabre circumstances under which it occurred, scandalized Boston's Back Bay society.