STORY WRITERS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16227, 24 March 1917, Page 3

STORY WRITERS.

v O. HENRY, The care with which O. Henry selectfid his material and 'the leisure he required to brood over it, are shown in the fact that nolo of years did his stories re''•■■ct in a marked degree his new envirnnieiit in New York. The intervening iiics rlenlt with the West or South-west, with Central or Southern America.

His favourite coign of observation was the restaurant table. He wished, however, to see life in the mass and in characteristic occupation and mood. A lady acquaintance tells of the attentiveness with which he listened to the technical talks at a meeting of master workmen which ha once attended. This lady, indeed, was "looked up" by 0. Henry as a fit person to introduce him to the life of the shop girls. "I used to have parties of my friends up to meet him," she records, "and. they never dreamed that this Mr Porter, who fitted so well into our queer, makeshift life, was a genius. He had absolutely no pose-. That, is why there ■was never anything sordid in his stories. We were poor enough in our little rooms, but he saw the little pleasures and surprises that made life bearable to us." 0. Henry himself has • saiu that he used to spend much time in his first years in New York knocking about the streets, at all hours of the day and night, and dropping into out-of-the-way places for a chat. . Through Hell's Kitchen, down the Bowery, "I never met any one but what I could' learn something from him. He's had some experiences that I have not had. He sees the world from his own viewpoint. If you-go at it the right way, the chances are that you can extract something of value from him. But, whatever you do, don't flash a pencil or a notebook. Either he will shut. up or he will become a Hall Caine." By the time "Cabbages and Kings" was published, 0. Henry had dug into his vein in New York, and in the six years of life left to him he found his most prolific period—each succeeding year to be marked by the publication of two volumes of his stories.