O. Henry Biography Page: 47
ix, 258 p., [10] leaves of plates : ill., front. (port.) ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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BIRTIPLkCE AND EARLY YEUIS
of humanity : the friend-of-all-the-world, after the
only original model of Kim. the vagabond? Charm
flow ed from him through his peculiarly personal pen
into all that he wrote."
The pasage is reproduced here not to illustrate
charm-though ev-ery ord- i instinct with it-but as
an example of 0. Henry's ingrained affection for the
place of his birth. A bov's life in a small Southern
town immediate -- after the war, one phase of that life
at least, was never better portrayed than these lines
portray it. and ,hate-er facts or events Imay be added
in this chapter may best be interpreted against the
background of the April moon. the porch, the honey-
suckle, and the iuiar with the broken E string. A
few years later O. Henri said, of the novel that lie
hoped to write: " The 'hero' of the story will be a ian
born and 'raised' in a somnolent little Southern town.
Iis education is about a c inImon school one, but he
learns afterward from reading and life."
It is of this little town and of the formative influences
that passed from it into (). Henry that we purpose
in this chapter to write. Hail William Sydney Porter
not been reared in "'a scmnoent little Southern town"
he would lard'ly have deve-ioped into the O. Henry
that we know to- ay. He was all his life a dreamer,
and if the "C it-y of FIo1.-ers" had already become tihe
"Gate City" during his boylhood, if the wooded slopes
17I - - _ I_ --.
-I I -1
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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/m1/63/: 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.