THE WAYSIDE INN.
Scene of Longfellow’s Famous “Tales of the Wayside Inn.”
In “The Tales of a Wayside Inn” (1863), the characters were not fictions, but real persons. The musician was none other than the famous violinist, Ole Bull; Professor Luigi Monte, a close friend who dined every Sunday with Longfellow, was the Sicilian; Dr. Henry Wales was the youth; the poet was Thomas W. Parsons, and the theologian was his brother, Rev. S. W. Longfellow. This poem shows Longfellow at his best as a story teller, while the stories which are put into the mouth of these actual characters perhaps could have been written by no other living man, for they are from the literature of all countries, with which Longfellow was so familiar.
Thus, both “The Tales of a Wayside Inn” and “Evangeline”—as many other of Longfellow’s poems—may be called compilations or rewritten stories, rather than creations, and it was these characteristics of his writings which Poe and Margaret Fuller, and others, who considered the realm of poetry to belong purely to the imagination rather than the real world, so bitterly criticised. While they did not deny to Longfellow a poetic genius, they thought he was prostituting it by forcing it to drudge in the province of prosaic subjects; and for this reason Poe predicted that he would not live in literature.
It was but natural that Longfellow should write as he did. For thirty-five years he was an instructor in institutions of learning, and as such believed that poetry should be a thing of use as well as beauty. He could not agree with Poe that poetry was like music, only a pleasurable art. He had the triple object of stimulating to research and study, of impressing the mind with history or moral truths, and at the same time to touch and warm the heart of humanity. In all three directions he succeeded to such an extent that he has probably been read by more people than any other poet except the sacred Psalmist; and despite the predictions of his distinguished critics to the contrary, such poems as “The Psalm of Life,” (which Chas. Sumner allowed, to his knowledge, had saved one man from suicide), “The Children’s Hour,” and many others touching the every day experiences of the multitude, will find a glad echo in the souls of humanity as long as men shall read.
THE PSALM OF LIFE.
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.
This poem has gained wide celebrity as one of Mr. Longfellow’s most popular pieces, as has also the poem “Excelsior,” (hereafter quoted). They strike a popular chord and do some clever preaching and it is in this their chief merit consists. They are by no means among the author’s best poetic productions from a critical standpoint. Both these poems were written in early life.