Sydney Porter, whose pen name was O. Henry, was an American journalist
who lived during the years 1862 to 1910. For several years he wandered
in the South and Southwest, gathering the many and varied experiences
of a journalistic career. These he aptly used in his numerous short
stories, and he was ever a beguiling story teller.
He finally settled down in New York City and there wrote his best
stories. Instead of writing of the Four Hundred, or the social set of
the great city, as so many other writers were fond of doing, with his
clever pen he revealed to us through little sketches the real life of
the four million others in New York. Laundresses, messenger boys,
policemen, clerks, even the tramps ever present in the parks were
pictured for us as real everyday people whom one could find anywhere.
Read his stories in _The Four Million_, from which "The Gift of the
Magi" is taken, for you will like them.
O. Henry, while his stories usually lack the qualities of enduring
literature, those of a cultured style and a universal theme--a theme
that will be true to human experience through the ages--is yet master
of the composition of the short story. Examine "The Gift of the Magi"
and you will find that it develops one main incident carried out in a
single afternoon with all the necessary details compressed; that is,
the details are suggested in a few words but not developed. The story
has originality and appeals to the imagination of the reader, for the
whole life of the two characters is suggested through this brief,
rather touching sketch. The end, though it is a surprise and comes like
the crack of a whip, was nevertheless carefully prepared for. Then the
writer is through, and we are left with the feeling that we know this
everyday young couple, who after all have the priceless gift, an
unselfish love, which, hidden from the eyes of the world, glorifies
their commonplace existence.
O. Henry approaches true literature here, for he has a theme that has
lived and will ever live to uplift human life. His style too,
influenced by his theme, is raised somewhat from his usual slangy
expression.