by O. Henry
I read “Miserere,” which you so kindly sent, with no small interest. I fancy that it is intended to appeal rather to those who possess the musical temperament and enthusiasm. I am barred out from the peculiar region in which the soul of the musician is supposed to dwell, but I found the tale ingenious and pleasing, and admired the contained and simple style in which it is told. It seemed to me to be a natural and unstudied expression. If it was art it is good art; but you will please keep on your own ground and don’t come interfering with my line of business. I don’t try to compete with you in your opuses and things, and I think you ought to play fair. I did take a course of Sep Winner’s System of Self-Instruction for the Violin in the woodshed at home, but I am not continuing it at present, so I do not feel that you could consider your laurels in any danger from me. Lawsy! ain’t it funny how much jealousy there is between us artists?
Now, Miss Wagnalls, will you allow me to use a poetic phrase and ask you to quit your kiddin’? Unless you are really doing so (and I grieve, yea, I drop a tear to think so) you must know that I haven’t nearly “arrived” yet. I’m only on the road, and the “meteor” and “comet” & “fixed star” that you make believe you see is only the milky way, and very skim-milky at that, and you have very kindly put on a pair of your grandma’s magnifying glasses to view it with.
Now, if you don’t quit it, when I write again I’ll fill every page with extremely laudatory praise of the way you sledgehammered that nocturne solfeggio of Chopin’s in G flat in the opera house at Rahway, N. J.
What a very hazardous situation you were in when you had the conversation with the storekeeper! How fortunate that you were not called upon to give him a description of your grandmother’s vague & mysterious, not to say suspicious relative. Out of concern for your feelings, in a future predicament, I feel that I ought to furnish you with means of extrication from it. Should you happen to go “up to the store” again and meet an inquiry of a similar nature, just lay the enclosed counterfeit presentment (clipped from a catalogue) on the counter, and say: “that’s him.” Be sure to say “him.” You might lay the picture close against the gum- drop jar as you do so, thus giving the storekeeper a chance to remark: “Well, by gum!”
If the storekeeper here should ask me about the distinguished pianist whom I am so proud to know so slightly, of course I would be utterly silenced and confounded. I could only bow my head with regret and humiliation, and walk out of the store. I could lay nothing next to the gumdrop jar in silent but happy confirmation of my claims.
Ah, well, of course I could not expect — but — well, — would there — I mean — I know there couldn’t — but — well, if — (I guess I’ll have to correct this sentence in the proofs). But a bright idea strikes me! Aha! Genius can scarcely escape belonging, to a certain extent, to the public. Maybe there is one in a book. Aha! away to the Astor library to search the musical publications! Even yet I may hurl against the gumdrop jar a heavy volume containing it! A good title for a story— “The Possessed Picture, or the Penalty of Playing the Piano in Public.”
Very glad you wrote again. I enjoy your letters very much, only they are too brief.
Sincerely yours O. Henry.
V
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The substance of the next letter was called forth by one from me announcing our intended return to New York.
The clipping from the “Reader” magazine was a brief biography about “the new luminary in fiction’s firmament.” It was the first article, I believe, revealing that O. Henry was the nom de plume of Sydney Porter.
M. W.
O. HENRY TO MISS WAGNALLS
44 West 26th St.
New York, Oct. 13 [ 1903 ].
My dear Miss Wagnalls:
“‘The time has come,’ the walrus said, ‘to talk of many things.’” I have a deep, dark confession to make to you. Please consider me kneeling before you with one knee on a handkerchief, and the orchestra playing: “Since first I met you.”
If you remember, once you wrote that you did not know whether I were “man, woman or wraith.”
Well, I am a wraith. There never was an “O. Henry.” The name is a nom de guerre; but still it is mine, for I made it.
While I do not claim to be specially modest or violet-like, I have always disliked publicity, and therefore I have written and often corresponded with publishers and others, above that pseudonym.
The clipping from the “Reader” which I enclose will serve to further illuminate the matter.
Of course, to the editors of “Mc- Clure’s” and “Ainslee’s” and “Everybody’s,” “Harper’s,” &c., I am known personally, and they assist me in preserving the pen name.
Yes, indeed, Miss; and if ye wants any riferences, ye can ask them same gintlemen, sure, what they knows about “O. Hinry.”
I hope you won’t consider my “Henry” role as anything like a deception, for I began writing to you that way and — well I AM “O. HENRY,” so maybe you’ll let me stay so. I’m sure I’d rather be your cousin than anybody else’s I know.
Indeed I would be very glad and pleased to call at your home as you have so graciously extended permission, and if you decide, after reading my confession of guilt, to allow me to do so, I will look forward to the time with much pleasure.
I read with some alarm your threats with regard to the “new frock.” Please don’t do it. I’m only a lone cowpuncher — a long ways from camp, and I shy like a bronco at anything with passementerie or ruching on the flounces. Please make it a quiet, soothing function —
just as the boys and girls meet in the graveyard in Lithopolis — won’t you?
I’d like very much to come down and tell you all about tarantulas and cyclones and train robbers &c.
If you decide to forgive me for my (innocent) deception, please notify me, and I will feel happier.
No, I am not as busy as you think. I should be, but as I have no one to boss me and make me keep at work I am generally what you would call pretty lazy. Therefore, my evenings are mostly open, as most of my movements are decidedly impromptu.
So, if I am so lucky as to escape your censure, I would esteem it a great favour to be allowed to call any evening — say Thursday or Friday this week or any evening next week, whichever may suit you best.
If you decide to “turn down” the “wraith” there will be no more calendar — neither days, weeks, or months.
Sincerely yours & hoping to be still your cousin Sydney Porter “O. Henry.”
VI
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This “Majesty” letter has back of it considerable language in the way of conversation — as the Gentle Grafter would say.
We had talked once of the impossible manuscripts that are sent to and passed through every editorial sanctum. He told of spending an hour with an editor who was glancing over the day’s accumulation of stories, one of which, in describing a social function, said:
“The rooms were filled by”
O. Henry paused at this point and asked me to guess what they were filled by. I gave it up: “by half- past nine” was the conclusion of the quotation.
I contributed a phrase gleaned from a Funk & Wagnalls MS. that had come our way: it was a novel dealing with Anne of Austria. The Duke of Buckingham had addressed Her Majesty with some query — I forget what — but the next line read: “4 Sure/ said the Queen.” Some time later I read a story by Rex Beach — a new name in those days — and finding a touch of the Henry- esque in the style, and recalling that O. Henry had told me he sometimes wrote stories under other names, I jumped to the conclusion that this was one of them. Crossing out the Rex Beach name and writing O.
Henry above it, I added as sole explanation, the words “‘Sure,’ said the Queen.” The day after mailing him the story I received this royal reply.M. W.
O. HENRY TO MISS WAGNALLS
25 East 24th St., N. Y. Nov. 11 [ 1903 ].
To Her Majesty the Queen of Bad Guessers “Wrong, your Majesty
,” replied the thingumbob.
Rather funny, but Rex E. Beach called in to see me just after I had your royal communication. He is a big, broad, breezy fellow from Alaska, and he travels for a fire brick manufactory, and writes his stories on trains or pieces of paper or whatever comes handy.
Here I am at 25 E 24th, and 3 editors are guarding the door & keeping me in at work.
Won’t your Majesty send a troop of Mousquetaires to rescue me?
I’m as ragged and disreputable looking as Russell Sage. When I sell a story & buy some new clothes may I then ask you to give me some more tea?
P. S. And little cakes. Yours very truly and hard at work O. H.
VII
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Another painful incident, similar to the one that occurred in Mr. Bennett’s drug store, was the occasion for this diatribe upon the crime of prevarication. A stranger whom I met at a reception was the villain in this instance who cast me into confusion and blighted my expanding pride in O. Henry’s acquaintance.
“How did you happen to meet him?” I suddenly heard thundered at me. The man may have spoken mildly, but those words were to me like a bomb from the blue. I was not wholly paralyzed, however, and therefore succeeded in answering vaguely but rather ingenuously, I think, and with a commendable regard for the half-truth:
“Oh, through an editor friend.” The villain’s next sentence explained the why of his interest in my meeting with the Lone Star of Texas. He (the villain) also hailed from that state, and having cowboy memories akin to O. Henry’s had frequently thought of trying to lasso an acquaintanceship with him. In fact, he stated his intention of proceeding at once to look him up. I instantly had visions of a chummy intimacy ensuing between O. Henry and the villain, and the possibility that he might learn that not an editor friend but a letter of curiosity from me had started up our acquaintance. One does hate to be caught in a — mis- truth. Rather than be caught in it, one prefers owning up in advance. So this is what I did — wrote out a full confession, which I signed and sealed and sent to O. Henry — with fine results, as every reader of the following letter will admit.
O. HENRY TO MISS WAGNALLS
[Date on Envelope Dec. 8, 1903.] 25 E 24th St., New York.
My dear Miss Wagnalls:
You can’t imagine how delighted I am to welcome you, as an honorary Member, into the noble army of Prevaricators. I am one by preference, habit, and practice, and I have an unholy glee whenever we get in a recruit from the rapidly thinning ranks of the Truth Tellers.
Of course I will protect your retreat from that very dull company; and if the “terrible person from Texas” dares to propound any of his impertinent interrogations, I shall swear to him by the eye-tooth of Ananias in the sacred Lodge Room of the Prevaricators that Mr. Wheeler was so kind as to introduce me to you at a tea party at half past five under an oleander tree in the prairie during a snowstorm in July while you wore a pink chiffon overcoat and an organdie muff just after a cattle round-up in Madison Avenue. These little details will give the story — watch out for this word — verisimilitude, won’t they?
LITHOPOLIS But don’t let your conscience bother you, you did exactly right. Next time it will be much easier, and by and by you will become a full- fledged member of the P’s, and can tell ‘em just as easy!
I suppose, with your unfortunate love for music, that you are enjoying the extremely disagreeable noises with which the alleged operas are delighting the misguided admirers of such sounds this season. I, myself, have never heard “Tannhauser” or “ A’lda,” but I do not wish to seem as boasting of my luck. Of course I’m not saying anything against the piano. Before the pianola was invented the piano was a real joy and convenience in homes where nobody could play it — they’re so handy to pile old magazines on.
Do you ever hear from Lithopolis?
Sitting here in my lonely apartments (i) I often wonder if Bart Kramer has rebuilt his barn yet — the one devastated by the fearful holocaust that struck its ice-cold fangs into the doomed city while you were there. And again I sit in the gloaming and seem to see the patient figure of Jane Harkishamer as she fetches up the hoss and buggy to the gate. And the tombstone lady! — is she still settin’ ‘em up to her friends yet?
I’m afraid you’re fickle, and you now prefer Rex E. Beach and Marietta Holly, or you would keep me posted about these matters in which we were once mutually interested. Aha! Do I see you turn pale? You are discovered! Once your Cousin but now forgotten!!
“O Henry.”
VIII
This letter is almost self-explanatory. The book, sent through my publishers, is dedicated:
“To those who love music but have no opportunity of familiarizing themselves with Grand Opera.”
O. Henry, with his characteristic cleverness in juggling phrases, wittily inverts my dedication.
M. W.
O. HENRY TO MISS WAGNALLS
28 West 26th Street, New York, Oct. 28, 1907.
My dear Miss Wagnalls:
Your publishers sent me your latest book some days ago, and your card accompanying it leads me to suspect that you instigated the deed. I am sure proud to get it; and have waited a few days before writing in order to send with my acknowledgment my latest volume of poor, insignificant, tiresome, unworthy, dull, pusillanimous, insufferable stories.
(Of course you understand that the adjectives are hypocritical.)
I am going to read “Stars of the Opera” carefully, and use the information in my conversation to gain a “rep” as a musical critic without having to go through the work of listening to the music.
I feel that I am one of the dedicatees of your book, and that the printer has been in error, and that it should read “To those who love musicians but have no opportunity to familiarize themselves with writers on grand opera.”
Oh, those proof-readers!
Sincerely yours
Sydney Porter.
The Biography
O. Henry, c. 1895
O. HENRY BIOGRAPHY by C. Alphonso Smith
Short story writer and literary critic Charles Alphonso Smith (1864-1924) was a fellow native of North Carolina and also a professor of literature at several southern universities. This well-researched biography was first published in 1916, six years after O. Henry’s death.
Charles Alphonso Smith
CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE
THE LIFE AND THE STORY
CHAPTER TWO
VOGUE
CHAPTER THREE
ANCESTRY
CHAPTER FOUR
BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY YEARS
CHAPTER FIVE
RANCH AND CITY LIFE IN TEXAS
CHAPTER SIX
THE SHADOWED YEARS
CHAPTER SEVEN
FINDING HIMSELF IN NEW YORK
CHAPTER EIGHT
FAVOURITE THEMES
CHAPTER NINE
LAST DAYS
O. Henry’s Full House (1952) is an anthology film consisting of five separate stories by O. Henry. The film was directed by five directors and is narrated by author John Steinbeck (a great admirer of the short story writer), who made a rare on-camera appearance to introduce each story.
PREFACE
MY CHIEF indebtedness in the preparation of this book is to Mr. Arthur W. Page, of Garden City, New York. He has not only put at my disposal all of the material collected by the late Harry Peyton Steger but has been unfailing in helpful suggestion and in practical cooperation. To the authorities of the Library of Congress and of the Free Public Library of Greensboro, North Carolina, I am also indebted for services cheerfully and effectively rendered. Others from whom I have received valuable oral or written information are mentioned for the most part in the pages that follow. Grateful acknowledgments are due also to Mrs. J. Allison Hodges and Mrs. E. E. Moffitt, of Richmond, Virginia; Professor James C. Bardin, of the University of Virginia; Miss Anna Porter Boyers, of Nashville, Tennessee; Miss Bettie Caldwell, Mr
. S. A. Kerr, Mr. A. W. McAlister, Colonel James T. Morehead, Miss Belle Swaim, and Mrs. G. W. Whit- sett, of Greensboro; Mrs. G. B. Bush, of Hopkins, South Carolina; Mr. J. W. Monget, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Mr. George M. Bailey, of Houston, Judge T. M. Paschal, of San Antonio, Mr. David Harrell, Professor John A. Lomax, Mr. Ed. R. McLean, Mr. Herman Pressler, Professor J. F. Royster, and Mr. William H. Stacy, of Austin, Texas; Mr. Landon C. Bell and Mr. Howard P. Rhoades, of Columbus, Ohio.
O. HENRY BIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER ONE
THE LIFE AND THE STORY
O. HENRY was once asked why he did not read more fiction. “It is all tame,” he replied, “as compared with the romance of my own life.” But nothing is more subtly suggestive in the study of this remarkable man than the strange, structural resemblance between the story and the life. Each story is a miniature autobiography, for each story seems to summarize the four successive stages in his own romantic career.
First, the reader notices in an O. Henry story the quiet but arrestive beginning. There is interest, a bit of suspense, and a touch of distinction in the first paragraph; but you cannot tell what lines of action are to be stressed, what complications of character and incident are to follow, or whether the end is to be tragic or comic, a defeat or a victory. So was the first stage of his life. The twenty years spent in Greensboro, North Carolina, were comparatively uneventful. There was little in them of prospect, though they loom large with significance in the retrospect. O. Henry was always unique. When as a freckle-faced boy, freckled even to the feet, he played his childish pranks on young and old and told his marvellous yarns of knightly adventure or Indian ambuscade, every father and mother and boy and girl felt that he was different from others of his kind. As he approached manhood, his “somnolent little Southern town” recognized in him its most skilful cartoonist of local character and its ablest interpreter of local incident. Moliere has been called “the composite smile of mankind.” O. Henry was the composite smile of Greensboro.