O. HENRY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 446, 11 December 1930, Page 2

O. HENRY.

I met O. Henry in the kmd of environment that he loved. Between 1904 and 1906 he wrote sonic of his most famous stories for the New York W arid. The contract stipulated that he wrrst produce one story a Week. This arrangement imposed a hardship because the author’s life and method of work were thoroughly disorganised. To William Johnston, then associate editor of the Sunday Magazine of the World, fell the arduous task of securing the copy from O. Henry. Johnston asked me to meet his star contributor at lunch, . . . Henry Was waiting for us when we arrived. Ear a Southerner he was most undemonstrative. He was of average height, with rather pallid face, dreamy eyes, and he spoke with a soft drawl. He had an instinct for self-effacement and he detested people who sought him out because of his work. The human element was the thing that he sought most in h is fellow creatures and he demanded that he be measured by the same rule. You felt instinctively that he was kind and understanding. Without being familiar in the slightest degree, O. Henry immediately established a bond with people. If he liked you he would call you “Colonel'' before much time had elapsed. ... No one loved New York tvith a more passionate devotion than O. Henry. To him "The Coice of the City” always called. Once when he was at Asheville he said to his wife, "I could look al these mountains a hundred years and never get an idea, but just one block downtown in New York an d 1 can catch a sentence, see something in a face —and I've got my story.” To a friend he expressed his feeling about the city whose charm held him like a spell, in this way; ”1 would like to live a lifetime on each street in New York- . .Each house has a drama in it.”—lsaac /•. Marcosson, in "Adventures in Interviewing.”