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8th Mar. "I cannot help myself, my heart is full", wonderful days - how they do me good - refreshing body and soul, after the dreary, dismal winter. I have hardly time for these tasks - I stroll about, drunk with delight, the lovely sun penetrates my very marrow - the woods resound - the first flowers awake - Bees, come in your troops, with your golden-yellow stockings - my flower-heads wave freely in the air - and turn laughing to the gentle sun - grasses and low-growing plants peep out from their dead mother earth " what a thousand joys - when the heart is right - joys not enjoyed by any worldling." Bräker goes for an early morning walk with Susanna Barbara and Anna Maria, by the stream, climbing round the rocks. [Chronik, pp 196-197]

In August also David Rudolf Suter is installed as pastor in Wattwil, the occasion moves Bräker to tears. [Chronik, p 199, no exact date]

September brings unseasonable snow on the mountains, and on 17th Oct. there is a partial eclipse of the sun. Bräker records that he has spent many a happy day since his last entry, but has also been more often besieged by passion. [Chronik, p 199]

4th Dec. Michel Bräker, oldest brother of Bräker's father, dies in his 81st year. Bräker, his brother Georg and his sister Anna attend the funeral. Bräker wishes that he had not given way to his wife's wishes and had made his own home in the mountains: "mountain people are always strong and healthy, of a cheerful humour and happy disposition." [Chronik, p 200]

In December Bräker anticipates the joy of the following spring, the weather is unusually mild. In the night of the 30th thieves try to break into the house, but Bräker disturbs them. The criminals are probably a gang of five stalwart men, armed with clubs and knives, who have been seen in the neighbourhood earlier. Bräker has money and goods worth 400 guilders in his house, and thanks God that he did not sleep heavily. [Chronik, p 201]

1782 aged 46

Autobiography 76 "Another four years (1782-1785) general overview":

"Did I wish, as I formerly did in my diaries, to relate all the events of my life, which on the whole all inhabitants of the earth have in common, and only tell over these four years, I could fill whole volumes with them. [...] But my foolish inclination to write has for the most part left me. The cause: firstly, my business affairs give me more and more to do and to think about. Household cares often come near to distracting my wits and destroy the fine-spun web of literary conceptions. Then, moreover, my children are growing up and almost out of my control, and it takes not a little time and hard thinking merely to try and keep them on the right path. Thirdly my life's companion, as has always been her wont, is still disputing with me for the mastery, and sometimes with such vehemence that I have to retreat before her, and often I cannot find a single corner in our little home where, even for a few moments, the Muse might visit me without being disturbed. Yet every week I succeed so far as to take myself off for a few hours, then - I will admit it - then I prefer to pursue some innocent pleasure, which clears my head, rather than heat it still further at my desk, in the midst of all the clamour of the house. Only from time to time, perhaps on a Sunday or the eve of a holiday, I have the chance to leaf through a fine book, but before I have read through it properly I have to put it away. But meanwhile it is such a temptation for me that I cannot resist it.

And so in the end during a whole week there remains not a moment left for writing, however much I might have the inclination and the intention to cast down on paper this and that striking thought or feeling, until an opportune quarter of an hour offers itself, but then the best of it has

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