Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/246

 180 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS Puritan story, which no one but a critic would care to question. We think, however, that the ancient fable of Europa is likely to have suggested the ride to Duxbury on the back of the bull, for at that time there were few cattle in the colonies. " 'The Tales of a Wayside Inn,' " said Mr. Longfellow, " received that name merely to give them locality. I had never been in the Wayside Inn, but once." (We think that he stopped there on his first return from Europe when travelling from Albany to Boston, on which road there were the White Horse, Red Horse (Wayside), and Black Horse Inns.) " I had written the stories in verse, and I wished to connect them with a sympathetic place and a company of story-tellers. My friends were accustomed to dine occasionally at the Wayside Inn, and it seemed a pleasing fancy to place my story-tellers there." The Poet of the com- pany was Mr. Parsons, the Dante scholar; the Theologian, Mr. Wales; the Si- cilian, Luigi Monte, an exile from Sicily, whom President Lincoln sent back in an official capacity, under the influence of Charles Sumner, when Sicily be- came free during the Italian revolution ; the Jew was Edrika, an accomplished Boston merchant. " Paul Revere's Ride " is perhaps the most popular, and the " Vision Beauti- ful " the most philosophical, of these many tales. The story of " Lady .Went- worth " is a most charming story of old New England folk-lore, and wears the quaint and sympathetic colorings of colonial times. " I have given up the theory," said Mr. Longfellow, " that the old stone tower at Newport is to be connected with the Norsemen. I feel certain now that it is merely a windmill. I have a model of just such a mill, which was a common sight on the coasts of the North Sea." His residence in Scandinavia as a student gave him a love of the literature of the North, and hence his i tales from the Sagas. The melodious and sympathetic qualities of Longfellow's verse meet well the wants of the composer. The songs of the poet are more and more being wedded to music. "The Bridge," "The Rainy Day," "The Day is Done," "The Legend of the Crossbill," " The Silent Land," "Allah," "The Sea Hath its Pearls" (translation), and many other poems have found expression in musical art as inspired and beautiful as themselves, and thus winged will long go singing through the world. The English composers have thus far been the best inter- preters of his songs. His view of literature at that time, when he had made his fame and stood in the ripeness of the harvest, was expressed in the words of Fitz Greene Halleck, which he quoted : " A little well written is immortality." He had always acted on Horace's advice as given in the " Poetic Art," and had chosen subjects that waited a voice, and made what was useful, agreeable. Every poem, even though an inspiration, had been carefully revised, until the best and most sympathetic, picturesque, and worthy expression was found. His poems grew in art with years. One of his earliest volumes was " Outre Mer," which was followed by " Hyperion " after some years ; both prose works were filled with the spirit of