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O. HENRY (Page 11)Sydney Porter, whose pen name was O. Henry, was an American journalist who livedduring the years 1862 to 1910. For several years he wandered in the South andSouthwest, gathering the many and varied experiences of a journalistic career. These heaptly 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 ofwriting of the Four Hundred, or the social set of the great city, as so many other writerswere fond of doing, with his clever pen he revealed to us through little sketches the reallife 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 everydaypeople 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 acultured style and a universal theme—a theme that will be true to human experiencethrough the ages—is yet master of the composition of the short story. Examine "The Giftof the Magi" and you will find that it develops one main incident carried out in a singleafternoon with all the necessary details compressed; that is, the details are suggested in afew words but not developed. The story has originality and appeals to the imagination of