literary aspiration, bought the press and the name of The
Iconoclast for $250; but O. Henry's Iconoclast after two
issues also ceased to flutter. Later, when Brann again
accumulated the necessary funds to permit him to throw off
the hireling's yoke, he asked for and received back from O.
Henry the legal right to the title of his own paper.

I relate this incident not to cast discredit upon O. Henry's
originality. His unique mastery of story structure was all his
own, but that richness of figurative speech, particularly
those exaggerated humorous metaphors which make his
every paragraph so delightful, we may well believe to be an
Elijah's mantle fallen from the shoulders of Brann, and worn
over a new tunic.

Should any man create more than a rare few of the words
he uses his speech would be as meaningless as a doctor of
theology explaining the trinity. Likewise that subtle thing
called "style," that revivifying of the dead ashes of
dictionary words, though more peculiar to the man, is most
potent when it borrows freely but wisely from all that has
gone before.

Stevenson read, and confessed to deliberate practice work
in imitation of, the masters that preceded him. So we know
that Brann read, absorbed, transmuted, and transfigured
the style of the classic writers, and added a daring measure
of reckless originality. As Brann read his Homer and his
Carlyle, his Shakespeare and his Ingersoll, so Hubbard and
O. Henry read their Brann; and Hubbard specifically