command this Laban too, that he may only speak in friendly words to this Jacob!" [Genesis 29-31]. And the All-merciful heard my prayer; and I received a milder answer than I had any reason to expect. O what a precious thing it is to hope in the Lord, and to complain to Him with confidence about all one's concerns. This I have proved so often and so clearly, that my conviction is steady as a rock and now nothing in the world can take it from me..."
11th May Bräker misses the meeting of the Moral Society - a rare event. [Chronik, p 148]
31st Dec. Bräker resolves not to write so much about extraordinary weather, because people can read about it in the newspapers. Food prices remain favourable but cotton is dear and cloth very cheap. His business has done well and gives him hope of paying off his debts. [Chronik, p 141]
1779 aged 43
Autobiography 75 (continued):
"At the beginning of the year 1779, without my going to any trouble to seek it, a proposal was made to me that I should weave cotton cloth for a foreign manufacturer in Glarus, Johannes Zwicki.
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At first I was inclined to refuse, because a certain Grob
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who had worked on the same commission before me had gone bankrupt. But when I was assured that the cause of his ruin had had nothing to do with this, I allowed myself to be won over, and agreed to the contract on the same terms as he. I began work at once. The yarn was brought to me, and indeed it was of poor quality at first, but gradually it improved. At first I also had much trouble in finding enough winders and weavers. But I soon found that though much toil and vexation came into the business, there was also some prospect of doing well out of it..."
Bräker completed a volume of poetry this year: "Vermischte Lieder ... eines wildgewachsenen Dichters" - [Miscellaneous songs ... of a poet who grew up in the wilds]; they are mostly songs about weaving, spinning and farming. Voellmy [v 1 p 19] says they were not much good and quotes Bräker himself in his diary of 1790:"I will never make a poet". The Chronik [p 172] puts this at the end of the year, and states that probably not all the texts were by Bräker. The reproduction of the title-page shows that it was written by hand, not printed.
4th Jan. "How I spend my time"
"If I do not deceive myself, I am very thrifty with time. I regard time as lost when I sleep longer than is necessary for the recovery of my strength. And also the time which I idle away indoors, not reading, not writing, not thinking. And the same for the time when I am reading a book and find nothing for my edification, or when I sit in church and find it tedious. Most of my time is appointed for my business affairs. The night hours I mostly dedicate to thinking, reading and writing. I can of course think while I am working, but it is often in spite of myself quite confused and erratic thinking. About three or four hours a week I appoint for visiting, which are excellent hours of recreation for me, if I have luck with it.
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Seven or eight hours are appointed for sleep, for people like me have need of more sleep than those who never tire themselves out. No time seems to last longer for me than that
when I am often compelled to chatter
about offensive things, when a visitor plagues me for a full half day with wretched twaddle, and I have
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110
111
