Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 AH>  I'd say "of the last of Leacock's stories" there.  I
 AH>  doubt the author was "the last Leacock" because he had
 AH>  younger siblings & a son of his own.

 ak>  Or, may be in this way (to avoid two ofs)?:
 ak>  Maybe LAST LEAVES was a collection of Leacock's last
 ak>  stories, published by somebody?


          Yes, from a stylistic POV I think you've made a further improvement.
As to when the stories were written... it appears this was the first time they
had been gathered together in one volume, but my library copy doesn't say when
they were originally published.  I know of various authors who got their start
by writing short pieces for newspapers & magazines, then expanded the material
into a book.  In this case what we're seeing may be material which was written
toward the end of his life or which didn't fit into other collections....  :-)



 AH>  Pun alert!  "Henri" is the French spelling of "Henry".
 AH>  Over Here "OH HENRY!" is the name of a candy bar.
 AH>  Which came first?  Since I've been reading up on Stephen
 AH>  Leacock I think it's somebody else's turn.  :-Q

 ak>  I read it here:
 ak>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Henry
 ak>  But anyway wrote it wrong. ;-))


          Ah.  Perhaps you were thinking of the bit where, when asked what the
"O." stood for, he said "Olivier" & explained that it's the French spelling of
"Oliver".  In any case, I found the article a very interesting read & I gather
we may never know for sure how or why he chose this particular pseudonym.  ;-)



 AH>  In many ways I find it less surprising that Russians would
 AH>  be familiar with the work of a USAian... but both authors
 AH>  predate the sort of clever merchandising we see nowadays.

 ak>  You mean that they became famous without great advertising
 ak>  campaigns?


          By comparison, I think they probably did.  News travels more quickly
than it did 'way back when... and advertising is more sophisticated.



 ak>  A touching story, indeed.

 AH>  Yes.  Another which I particularly enjoyed was "The Gift
 AH>  of the Magi" (1905).  Judging by the number of spinoffs,
 AH>  I guess I'm not alone in that.

 ak>  Not bad, and the end was quite funny and happy. Although,
 ak>  touching stories as a rule are not fun, but they wake
 ak>  inside us something human.


          Yes.  At the same time, they appeal to our emotions & make us think.
IMHO it takes a skilled writer to pull that off.  On an intellectual level I'm
aware of the need for a willing suspension of disbelief, but I also understand
why a friend of mine who happened to be an art student balked when she noticed
"the marble chipped like plaster" in a film about Michelangelo.  If the writer
doesn't get his or her facts straight the moment may be lost where some people
would be asking themselves how they'd have responded in such a situation.  I'm
able to accept what O. Henry says & to understand how his characters must have
felt because his analysis jibes with what I've observed about the era....  :-)



 ak>  When I was a boy I read a story about a lonely house,
 ak>  abandoned in the forest. The people left it many years
 ak>  ago and also left their dog. The dog probably remembered
 ak>  its happy days in the house and every night it returned
 ak>  to the desolated, dilapidated house... to wind the wall-
 ak>  mounted cuckoo clock. Maybe the ticking sound made the
 ak>  deserted dog feel better?


          Maybe.  It's not unreasonable to suppose a dog could learn to wind a
cuckoo clock... all that's required is to pull the chains & nudge the pendulum
if it has stopped moving because it collided with the weights.  Not only would
the sound of the clock be familiar in this case, but I've also heard that many
people use a ticking clock to soothe a puppy which has been recently separated
from the litter on the theory that it imitates the mother's heartbeat....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)