SOME AMERICAN STORY-TELLERS.
By F. T. Cooper.
THE OPEN LETTER
As you finish the foregoing review of fiction writers, you may ask, “Why do you make no mention of one of the best known and most widely read of all our modern story-tellers—O. Henry?” We have reserved a special place for him on this page. O. Henry occupied a position of unique distinction among fiction makers, and it is only fitting that he should have a place of his own in this number of The Mentor. As there is in literature only one Edgar Poe and one Maupassant, so there is only one O. Henry—and the gamut of life’s keynotes that his fingers swept was wider than that of Poe and Maupassant combined. Tragedy, Comedy, Mystery, Adventure, Romance and Humor—he knew them all, and it was with no uncertain, amateur touch, but with the strong, sure stroke of a master that he played in those varied keys. His Tragedy is grim, his Comedy light and skilful, his Mystery baffling, his Adventure absorbing, his Romance charming, and his Humor irresistible.
* * * * *
O. HENRY
(William Sydney Porter—from the latest photograph made of him)