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Show A Talk With O. Henry , ?. II ABOUT two or three weeks, perhaps a month, before his death, O. Henry asked me to call and see him. The reason was, I had written some stories which he wished to discuss with me. He was temporarily in better health than he had been for some time, so I accepted his invitation. On my way to a ball game my first game of the season I stopped off at his hotel, a mediocre little establishment- I had been there once before, I recalled, to see a chorus girl who had said she wanted to write short stories of stage life. His rooms were darkened. He met me at his door and led me to the light. I was so astonished at the change in his appearance that I became very nervous and almost sick. However, the shock passed. He had been when I had casually met him a plump, pink dumpling of a man, dimpled, softly lisping, yet robust. Today he had on the Bame clothes, yet the flesh had so fallen away from him that his neck stood in his collar like a stick In a pond, his face mercilessly lined, his lisp a broken whisper murmured with an effort. He gave me a curious feminine impression not effeminate effem-inate as he sat in his chair something grandmotherly. This was the first time I had ever talked with him when he was aware who I was. At our previous meeting he did me the honor of mistaking me for the foreman of the composing room. We talked for a while of his health, and he told me practically th- same things that appeared in his "Adventures ol a Neurasthenic." Then we talked of money matters, and I urged him not to worry at this time. I represented some people to whom he owed a short story because of cash advanced ad-vanced to him. He seemed to have this on his mind and it recurred several times during our talk, I fretting the Interview needlessly. "You know, I gave them the beginnings of a story," he whispered, "but I've been too sick to finish it." He looked down at his folded hands patiently. A slight tremor, then: "If I can't finish fin-ish it, I wish you would." I deprecated my ability to do so. He continued, still looking down: "You finish it." Then he mapped out briefly in about twenty f words he spoke as little as possible because of the effort required just what he desired to occur in this story. (Eventually I did finish it. A humorous hu-morous detail of my work was that forgetting to ask him what part he as a narrator played in the i story, and finding that as narrator he must in some satisfactory way explain his inaction, I was forced to dispose of him by breaking his collarbone.) collar-bone.) , From this our talk turned to the subject of my visit my short stories. He said: 'I notice you generally use your final paragraph seriously. That is, you use it to ram home the main point in your story, the thing Iau have mainly been explaining, the thing which robably in the first place urged you to write the :ory. Now. my plan has been quite different, have generally tried to 'spring a surprise' in my ist paragraph. I think this is what has given iy stories such a vogue. The American people ke surprises especially where wit is brought to 3ar. But this is hard work for me and I am be-Innlng be-Innlng to think it doesn't really pay, after all. he next stories I write are going to have vour )rious endings to them. I called you up here to :gue you out of your position and, you je, without your saying a word, I am arguing lyself out of my own position. But I am think-ig think-ig as I go along. How do you go to work at a lort story?" I told him I first get my character; then what b expresses in life, as I see life; then the lnci-snts lnci-snts which will best reveal what my character cpresses. He nodded. What do you work hardest at?" I told him my first paragraph and my final paragraph. Again he nodded. "We both work the same way," he whispered. "Do you work quickly or do you carry a story around in your head a long time?" I answered that I generally carried the story around a long time, but that when I wrote I sometimes wrote the whole story out at one sitting. sit-ting. "I cannot do that," he said, lifting his voice and speaking with distinction. "I carry the story around a long time, too, generally speaking. But I can write on it only as it pleases me to write. Once I have it written, though, I seldom go over it." In answer to a question he said the witty parts came in the main spontaneously as he wrote. His mind seemed to play about all sides of a character charac-ter or a remark and then far afield for metaphor meta-phor or comparison. I did not argue the point; he said it with such ; H conviction. In fact, he spoke throughout with H such simplicity and such thorough belief in his H conclusions that, much as I disagreed with some j of them, I was silent and bowed to his sincerity. iH "And his handling of language," 'he went on. iH "I see nothing extraordinary about Maupassant. ilflfl He was very simple, it is true. But it wasn't ef- j H fectlve. I think I had a poor translation. Is it j iH so different in the original?" H I said yes. I cited "Claire de Lune" as being j ,H a typical Maupassant sketch which would suffer I H inevitably at the hands of an ordinary translator. H "Well," was his conclusion, "I never wrote a H filthy word in my life. I don't like to be com- 'H pared to a filthy writer." H He went to his book case; a small affair, con- M taining, as nearly as one hasty glance could re- M veal to me, the ordinary run of books to be met ll with in any household. ll "I have never read much," he said. "Have fl I said I had never read Dickeno 'cott and 'H Thackeray and all the accepted "big s," if that H was what he meant. H "It is exactly what I mean," he cried, "exactly. H Neither have I. I've always put it off, bore me so H when I pick one of them up. However, I intend H to force myself to school myself into reading , H them. It is a fault in men in our business not to j H have read them. Who do you think is the great- I H est American writer?" j H I replied, Mark Twain. ! H He said: "I don't care for Mark Twain. I ' H think he is greatly overrated. His humor is ' H coarse, a great deal of it is manufactured and a j great deal of it Isn't even funny. I can't read 11 him. He, too, makes me tired. Moreover, he is H a faker." H I expressed surprise at this, because I knew so i H much of Twain's work was a record of his own I B personal experiences. "Where does Twain j.,1 'fake'?" I asked. "iH 'He fakes in his western stuff." (I suppose' 0. H Henry meant in "Roughing It" and books of that H type). "And he fakes his Mississippi river stuff. j H Anyone who has lived in those places knows bet- jH ter. His 'Huckleberry Finn' is one mass of fake. I H What on earth do you see in him?" H I answered I enjoyed Mark Twain's broad hu- J H man philosophy, the common generous amplitude , H of his reasoning over human events and charac- wl ters. j fjH "I could never find any philosophy in him," lijl answered 0. Henry. "If you want philosophy j' ;H well put up in fiction have you ever read any of M Charles Roado's works." .H I replied: "Only 'Peg Woffington." 'H He said: "Read 'The Cloister and the .fl Hearth.' I never saw such a novel. There is i material for dozens of short stories in that one MM book alone." 11 I arose and said I must be going. Ml He smiled and said: 'You are very tactful. , 1 You are the first person that has come here to see me since I've been sick who hasn't tired me if completely out." j 11 I laughed and said: 'I must get out to the ball I h park before 2:30." Ill "You aren't much of a Bohemian, are you?" i"l ho said, with a twinkle. "I never see you at the ijtl regular 'affairs.' " ! I said I preferred ball games, and invited him j I to come with me some day. V I "I don't enjoy them," he replied. '"I don't I M like the idea of sitting still in one spot on a i,B hot bleachers or a cold grandstand for a whole fill afternoon. But I don't care for Bohemia any ,j 1 M more than you do only, it seems to M IJi (Continued on page 25) 1 fi '9 A TALK WITH O. HENRY. H wM (Continued from page 21 ) . fa M have been 'wished on me,' so I go around, some- f H times." H H At the door he took my hand and said: "You f H must come and dine with me some night. I want , r H to 'have a longer talk with you. Yes. it is about jj j' ;H serious endings. I am convinced you are right. 1 (H The serious ending is the only thing." jj 'H But before we could have the dinner, O. Henry 1 H found an ending not so seriously, but JL H irrefutable. I wonder that nobody has pointed f H out his Tenderloinization of Goethe's "Mehr j'. H Licht!" in his last words: "Lift me higher on the ,( H pillow, doctor. I don't want to go home in the (T H dark." The Mirror. i H i H Some Japanese shopkeepers serve their possi- 3J H ble customers with tea and cake before exhibiting RJ H their goods. ; H |