--About seven or eight years old the Children are let into
the secret, and it is curious how faithfully they keep it![1]
["Over the Brocken" must occupy a chapter of itself.]
[Footnote 1: Letter XCVII repeats 83, XCVIII follows.]
CHAPTER VII
THE RELIGION OF THE PINEWOODS
Coleridge called the letters from Germany which he published in "The
Friend" of 1809 the "Letters of Satyrane". He was fond of masquerading
under the name of this allegorical personage of the "Faery Queen"; and
in his "Tombless Epitaph" he described himself as Idolocrastes Satyrane.
Under this disguise he looked upon himself as the spokesman of the Idea
of the Omnipresence of the Deity. In order to appreciate the following
beautiful letter, one of the finest Coleridge ever wrote, the reader
should peruse Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp", "Lines written on leaving a
Place of Retirement", "The Lime-Tree Bower", and Wordsworth's "Tintern
Abbey". Wordsworth's sonnet, "It is a beauteous evening", and
Coleridge's own "Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni", also
belong to the same feeling for the God of Nature, but they were composed
after the letter "Over the Brocken".
Clement Carlyon, who is the chief authority for the life of Coleridge
during his stay at Gsttingen, gives a lively account of the ascent of
the Brocken, which took place on Whit Sunday, 12th May 1799.
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