A Service of Love - O. Henry - 251 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

O Henry


O. Henry (1862 - 1910) was an American short story author whose real name was William Sydney Porter.

His short stories were inspired from his observations of everyday life of the people. His first creative expressions came while working in the pharmacy where he would sketch the townspeople that frequented his uncle's drugstore in 1879. So in addition to being a gifted writer, he was an artist and a licensed pharmacist.




His first collection of short stories, Cabbages and Kings published in 1904.


O. Henry was always a lover of classic literature, and while pursuing his many ventures, O. Henry had begun writing as a hobby. When he lost his banking job he moved to Houston in 1895 and started writing for The Post. He collected ideas for his column by visiting the hotels, spending time in places where people gathered and observing and talking to people there. The many personal events of his own life, including his travels in Latin America and time spent in prison, clearly inspired his stories' twists and wordplay.

O. Henry's prolific writing period began in 1902 in New York City, where he wrote 381 short stories. He wrote one story a week for The New York World Sunday Magazine for over a year. Some of his best and least known work is contained in Cabbages and Kings, whose title was inspired by Lewis Carroll's poem, The Walrus and the Carpenter. The stories were set in a midwestern American town in which sub-plots and larger plots are interwoven in an engaging manner.



His second collection of stories, The Four Million, was released in 1906. The stories are set in New York City, and the title is based on the population of the city at that time. The collection contained several short story masterpieces, including The Gift of the Magi, The Cop and the Anthem, and many others. Henry had an obvious affection for New York City and its diversity of people and places, a reverence that rises up through many of his stories.

O. Henry's trademark is his witty, plot-twisting endings, and his warm characterization of the awkward and difficult situations and the creative ways people find to resolve them.

In 1952, Marilyn Monroe and Charles Laughton starred in O. Henry's Full House, a film featuring five of O. Henry's short stories. The film included The Cop and the Anthem, The Clarion Call, The Last Leaf, The Ransom of Red Chief and The Gift of the Magi.

Unfortunately, O. Henry's death was due to heavy drinking. By 1908, his health had deteriorated and his writing dropped off as a result. He was a gifted short story writer and left us a rich legacy of great stories to enjoy.

Adapted from AmericanLit site


A Service of Love is a short story by  O. Henry.


‘When one loves one's art no service seems too hard.’


Joe Larrabee and Delia Caruthers are both artists in their respective manners. Joe is a sketcher and Delia is a pianist. They meet at an art studio and love leads to marriage.

Joe joins an expensive class with a famous art master, Magister. Delia started taking classes with a famous pianist, Rosenstock. They both wanted to make their future bright in the field of art. Joe wanted to be able to paint masterpieces that old wealthy men would like to buy for generous sums of money. Delia wanted to become a member of a famous band, so she could be celebrated as a diva.


But soon they could not meet their expenses with their aspirations for art. They started cutting corners. They ran out of their savings. Delia decided to give piano lessons to earn some money for Joe. She wanted him to continue his painting classes. Delia’s decision upset him because he did not want her to work and give up on her own dreams. He thought about finding some work and quitting his classes. Delia disagreed and insisted he continues his classes.

This sacrifice and disguise of their lives, for each other, results in Delia hurting her hand one day. After some questioning Joe found out that she was secretly doing labor work like cleaning and ironing at laundry to get extra money and not giving classes at a comfortable home as she had said earlier. As it happens with O Henry’s twist in every story, Joe declares that he also was not selling his sketches as said before. In reality, he had been working on the engine in the same laundry as Delia worked, for the last two weeks.

Unknowingly the innocent couple’s fates met and their love was proved again.


Themes


Sacrificial love

The story shows how sacrifice is an important element in love. One can love and have lofty declarations about it. Love is of course physical too. But the story supersedes that too and gives the message that love is first spiritual and then has to have an element of willing the good of the other. I felt the story had very deep Biblical themes of Jesus Christ’s message of love.


Artists living in poverty

The story also shows how artists, whether 19th century America or even now, have to scrape through most of their career beginning from the very bottom to reach the top.