ABSTRACT
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's aim in coming to Germany was, as far as made out from his letters and notebooks, 'to finish his education', and to acquire a working knowledge of German, seen by him as indispensable for his future projects. Coleridge expressed himself 'very much affected' by intensity of the evening, and was particularly moved by the pastor who stifled 'the sob that was rising inside him’ when surrounded by his children. Coleridge's instinctive emotional identification with custom and mood was certainly an understandable reaction, if one considers that, by this time, he was feeling the separation from his own children and home. In contrast to the Wordsworths, who never managed to come to grips with it, Coleridge soon found communicating with Germans surprisingly easy. The pastor is 'unpretentious', the children 'chatter away' with him, and 'the little one of all corrects pronunciation with a pretty pert lisp and self-sufficient tone, while the others laugh with no little joyance.'.
