New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-03

ny NN"''E' -
-VFSE. BY the freak of circumstances
that wills il so. are Q. Henry days.
Il With so much else that should absorb
With Emperors dying almost unnoticod.
..,b twenty million men struggling on dozen
.sro,ts with the cost of living gripping Al
.,,r ,.jtals. and with the mad diversion of the
Tou, luxury 10 hold us back from thinking Of
.o,tbine at ably some odd chance we arc
m thinking and talking of the man who called
himself o. Henry Our neglected author is
i..d IN his grave. with scarcely publisher tc
Ill bobird his hearSe, and 10! six years after
All. 5eatb he is bursting upon us afresh, as II
,crc. with AN the splcndor OF rising genius
/, .defritivc edition" Of his works is out, pub
,,.bsd- American slang and all-in war
.,-;otcr England. Il is selling. so they tell
-. bv the hundred thousand \ professor Of
r,clisb #, 10 the front with an authoritative
1,ogrspbv" Editors arc calling eagerly for
q Henry articles, and the ponderous pundits Of
oascisl criticism, with a full sense Of their re
.rorsibility arc weighing the man IN their
...les a. carefully as poor Q. Henry himself
NIGHT have measured out a grain of morphine
/, the night silence Of his prison dispensary.
Meantime the voice Of the carping critic is
rf,ed IN. half doubtful even Of O. Henry's best
and postiyely contemptuous Of his worst
Most notable of all, the college professorlato
has stepped in-that august fraternity who
20, only truly recognize literature a thousand
wears after the plain people" have found 1t
m, and who reserve their smiles for the SO
c,lled Jokes Of Aristophanes, and look TO the
writings Of Plato for their horoscope of the
Democratic party
AZ the hands Of these and their like, Q.
Henry is being tried and found wanting. VIC
have II from one professor feminine one
that O. Henry could not write stories at all.
Worse than that. he not only could not write
tho thing called the short story, but he act
Ysrv degraded IT, That petted offspring Of
orr homes. the American Short Story which
is expected some day to bloom with such efful-
ronce A. 10 prove that We are after all lit
ersry people-our peculiar product which is
viewed even in the colleges with an indulgent
eyc-that. @. Henry would have strangled IN
is poor cradle lie would, they tell us, have
eboked il with his rough handling. poisoned
us nure blood with the bacillus Of his Western
slang. and married its usefulness for the col
lere textbook by his crude solecisms and his
ignorance.
q. HenryS stories. we are Informed by the
adverse critics. are not stories at all. but for
The most part mere anecdotes" (such is the
fatal word that has been found) dependent on
some purely literary trick of surprise or
enigma-some meretrlcious art of ending
tory with iuggler's comp dc nd'n-the SIM
plest thing in the world to do, for those who
care to stoop to it. Alas. that the generation
IN which We live should need to be told again
the story Of Abraham Lincoln and General
Grants whiskey Repeat it. at this late hour,
one dare not. But # the tales of o. Henry
are indeed Anecdotes then, in the Game of
common sense, let us have another barrelful.
The truth is that in matters of literature,
indeed Of all the arts we must Judge a-man by
his best and never by his worst. When
Homer mods we must turn our heads the other
way reading his Had aloud that we may not
hear the rsucous snoring Of the bard that
wrote it. 1t is by the highest reach of man
that we measure his stature. So IT should be IN
art. So IL always is, in fact when with the
lapse Of years the grain is winnowed into the
basket and the chat has flown upon the wind.
We think Of Francis Bacon as the author of
his immortal Essays not as the sneakng
parasite that dryeled Of divine monarchy for
the ear Of his soldering king. We think of
Gray as the man who wrote the "Elegy in
Country Churchyard." In the twilight shadow
Of his ancient elms we may forget the rest.
When We talk Of Washington Irving, let it be
in the midsummer drowsiness Of his Sleepy
Hollow Let US not ho,d it against Tennyson
that he allowed himself to be washed from his