Zeus to O. Henry: a year in the life of a librarian artist

Background:

I live in Stonington, Connecticut which is fewer than 30 miles from a collection of 227

casts from the late 19th century.

Within several months of visiting that gallery at the Slater Memorial Museum, I found

myself 17.8 kilometers from the Museum Gypsoteca Antonio Canova while studying the

book arts in Italy.

In October of the previous year, 2022, The Church with an Overshot Wheel, a restored

silent film based on the O. Henry film, featuring Aglaia (one of the three graces of

Antonio Canova’s sculpture of the same name) was screened at a film festival in Connecticut.

Question:

Where do cliffhangers (Fort Lee NJ) fit in?

Beginnings and endings

That’s what interests the reader

Middle not so much

O. Henry was known for

Surprise endings

Perhaps oh-prefaced endings

are more like it

The word oh signals a change of state

Which happens with surprise endings

Oh also reminds us of O. Henry

In one story

a preacher’s memory is restored

when the corporeal

becomes spiritual

A bag of milled corn is pierced

and spills from the second floor of a church

bathing the man in golden light

That’s light as knowledge

His lost child, Aglaia, exists

Aglaia, named after

one of the Three Graces

the very daughters of Zeus

is very much alive

as a fully grown woman

within arm’s length

Reunited, they are

by music

and faith

And please do not confuse surprise endings

with cliffhangers

Note

Taking its motif from ancient Greek literature, The Three Graces depicts the three

daughters of Zeus, each of whom is described as being able to bestow a particular gift

on humanity: Euphrosyne (mirth), Aglaia (elegance) and Thalia (youth and beauty).

Gabriella Radujko