The Supreme Sentimentalist
THE reading of this edition of 0. Henry, complete in one volume, demonstrates two things, -first the certainty and authority of his virtues, secondly the curiously_ old-fashioned colour that these virtues have, in the last six years, acquired.
His story is not necessary here ; it has been told often enough .; it is admirably retold by Stephen Leacock in this volume—how one William Sydney Porter served as an assistant in his uncle's chemist shop in Greensboro', Ohio, worked on a ranch in Texas, ran a- newspaper in Austin of that State, was in Central America, back in TeXaS again, in jail for a while Mid not 'by -his own fault, was in New York where he wrote the majority of his stories, and died at too -early an age'. If ever a man's life and nature shines thrOugh his work it is O. Henry's. We need to be told nothing about hini.; he • could be accused Of anyrerime; blamed for any misdeed, Red we should still trust him—stories like A Municipal Report and The Furnished Room are witnesses for his character.
It is precisely here perhaps that these stories of his are old-fashioned—old-fashioned not for - ever but for this immediate moment.
He is sentimental and romantic and neither the sentimen- talist nor the romantic are in fashion' just now. That does not mean, however, that sentiment and romance are gone from us, but rather that the voice of these- things is at the moment pitched -' in a certain tone.
Take for a moment 0. Henry's A' Furnished Room, one of his most famous stories. It is the tale of a young man who, coming to New York in search of the girl he loves, takes a , filthy frowzy lodging for the night and; while there, is over- whelmed by the scent of mignonette .. that belongs irrevocably to his lover. He searches the room for sign of her, questions the landlady who denies that any girl has lodged there, and, in despair, commits suicide. We learn then from the conversation of the landlady that his girl had committed suicide in the same room a few days before; A sentimental little story depending at • one time for its ,thrill upon the revelation of its -last line as so many of his tales 'have depended—too many perhaps. In t4e years since 'their first appearance the last lines of these stories have beeonrie famous—the trick has been acquired by many a disciple.
But not only is that ,trick now familiar to us but ;the ; directexpression of sentiment, has been 'outmoded.' .
" Suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled- with the strong, sweet odor of mignonette. It came as upon a single buffet of wind with such sureness and fragrance-and -emphasis that it almost seemed a living visitant- And the man Tried aloud : ' What dear ? ' as if he had been called, and sprang up and faded about. The 'rich odor clung to him and wrapped , him round." Is there a living artist of the short story in English who would dare to-day to be as direct, in sentiment as that ? It carries us back to the 'fifties and !sixties and we ran .see, further back again, the eighteenth century_tnrning, with-a senie-Of -shocked=shYsniaiti-- - - - - -
We have travelled, -through Henry James and Tchehov, through Katherine Mansfield and Aldous Huxley,' through Virginia Woolf and Thornton Wilder, -to a fresher mode and a newer subtlety. These stories, so recent in date, are as outmoded in manner as the novels of Edith Wharton or the fairy tales of Henry Harland.
No writer who cares for his art will 'perhaps ever write with so direct a sentiment again. That mode has passed as completely as the dark cypresses of Mrs. Radcliffe or the passionate invocations of L.E.L. _ But-the emotion—and this is . precisely where many appreciators of the modern school and critics of the old miss their way—is the same. The Mrs. Fleming Of Miss Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, the Alix of Mr. Thornton Wilder's Cabala, are as romantic in conception and as simple and direct in sentimentis eriy-of 0. Henry's heroes and heroines, but that sentiment is never stated and is for that reason the more securely felt. ' - No one, however, when reading this huge, closely printed volume but must be aware hoW completely, even in the worst of these stories (and some of them are very poor), O. Henry triumphs over the simplicities of his expression. - He triumphs partly because he was a born story-teller and partly because he was a 'poet. His narrative 'gift was extraordinary. Open this volume where you will, you must read on. He has that zest of narrative which is both one of the greatest joys in the story-teller and to-day one of the most unwisely despised 'by the modern novelist. Not one of the newest school of English novelists possesses it save possibly Mr. E. M. Forster, who does indeed intrigue you as to the next event only to disappoint you -by the incredibility of it when it arrives. 0. Henry is hiniself so excited by his narrative that he often forgets that he is an artist. He has no ideas to speak of, or rather his ideas are the old simple ones of fidelity under trial, courage and good huniour in adversity, tolerance of his fellow creatures".
One of his finest and noblest attributes is his compassion for humanity. I read a ridiculous statement by sonic critic the other day who actually rebuked Miss Margaret Kennedy for her compassion. " She must not," he' said, " haVe 'maternal feelings towards life. There creeps in decay." Well, that critic will not care for 0. Henry, nor indeed for the Iliad, nor Paradise Lost, nor Don Quixote, nor The Prelude, nor The Dynasts. Compassion with humour—how splendidly in these stories they go hand in hand !
0. Henry's humour is, indeed, .superb, and, it is superb because he applies it fantastically to realistic facts. - He is the only American writer as yet who has turned New York into the Arabian Nights and yet remained true to New York. Of all the.storie_s in this volume those in The Four Minim!. and The Voice of the City are, I think, the best and the most likely to endure. He has, a genius for shabby lodgings, dripping water taps, faded doorways, hissing gas-jets, tumbled beds. Here, in any- case, is a wonderful book, the most valuable „of all,the monster yolumes with which we have lately been
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