O. Henry Biography Page: 5
ix, 258 p., [10] leaves of plates : ill., front. (port.) ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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THE LIFE AND THE STORY
Up to Date or the Detroit Free Press became more and
more a certificate of the worth while, those of us who
remained in the home town began to prophesy with
some assurance that he would soon join the staff of
some great metropolitan newspaper or magazine and
win national fame as a cartoonist or travelling cor-
respondent.
The third stage of an O. Henry story is reached
when you find that your first forecast is wrong. This
is the stage of the first surprise. Something has hap-
pened that could not or would not have happened if
the story was to end as you at first thought. You
must give up the role of prophet or at least readjust
your prophecy to the demands of an ending wholly
different from that at first conjectured. This stage
in the life was reached in 1898, when misfortune, swift,
pitiless, and seemingly irretrievable, overtook him.
His life had hitherto developed uniformly, like the
advance of a rolling ball. It had permitted and even
invited some sort of conjecture as to his ultimate place
in the work of the world. But now his destiny seemed
as incalculable as the blind movements of a log in the
welter of the sea.
The fourth and last stage in an O. Henry story, the
stage of the second surprise, is marked by light out of
darkness. Lines of character and characterization,
of hap or mishap, converge to a triumphant conclusion.
-- ----.- 5
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Smith, C. Alphonso (Charles Alphonso), 1864-1924. O. Henry Biography, book, 1916; Garden City, New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth139384/m1/19/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.