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Examining his conscience, he finds himself not guilty on most counts. He was never violent except on a few occasions under severe provocation, for instance:

"Thirty years ago I gave a man a few hearty boxes on the ear, and I am also mindful of one or two other scuffles. [...] The said man had accused my father before a judge over the matter of a fir-tree blown down by the wind in the common woodland, my good father was fined even though he was innocent. Then indeed the lust for revenge boiled high in my bosom. One day I caught the evil-minded accuser in the act of stealing brushwood, and thereupon I dealt him one, two or three blows, so that his mouth and nose flowed over. Still bleeding he ran to the chief bailiff. He had me summonsed, but I admitted nothing and the other man had no witnesses."

He was never dishonest in his business dealings, never fond of disorderly company, quarrelling or lewd conversation. He never grudged money to make life more cheerful for others, or to help them out of difficulty. He admits being somewhat neglectful of his duty to his parents, but he will be punished for this "now that I myself am a father and also have rough and wilful children. In my case it was only from thoughtlessness, and I will hope that such is the case with them." He has already dismissed the charge of desertion from the Prussian army with the brisk couplet "Gezwungener Eid ist Gott Leid" ["Who forces an oath provokes God's wrath"].

Returning once more to his dealings with women, he claims that he never led any girl astray, never fathered a bastard child, never enticed a wife away from her husband and never knew any virgin other than his wife. He endured his wife's temper as well as he could and never used violence towards her. He tried to bring up his children by reason and kindness rather than perpetual scolding and punishment, since his own experience had taught him that the latter are bound to fail in the end, and because when his two eldest children died he felt that he had been too severe with them. Then, catching himself enumerating his virtues rather than his faults, he tries to sum up his own character:

"For a long time now I have taken a deal of trouble to study myself, and I believe that I do now in part know myself - my wife was an excellent help to me in this - but in part I am indeed still a strange riddle in my own eyes. So many just impressions, a heart so full of goodwill and inclined to righteousness and generosity, so much delight in the perceiving of all the physical and moral beauty in the world, such feelings of sadness at the sight or hearing of every injustice, grief or wretchedness, so many honourable wishes, in short, chiefly for the well-being of others. Of all this I am, as I think, aware and not deceived thereby. But then next to them: Still so many mean tricks of the heart, such a confusion of castles in Spain, Turkish paradises, in short the spiders' webs of the brain - which I still nourish in my foolish old head with secret pleasure - the like of which have perhaps never yet have risen in any human brain. - But now something more -"

280. "Of my present state of mind. Item, concerning my children":

"On this subject too I find myself compelled to tell the pure truth, my contemporaries and my descendants may conclude from it whatever they please. For indeed I still strive to persuade myself that those fantastic creatures of my brain are in the end not sinful - because they do no harm. [...] And yet I try hard at least to become better as I go on - or to become less bad. For example, for some time now as I go on my way and still sometimes wish that a child of my fancy might come to meet me - and then as I approach nearer to the spot where I might cross her path - and she is not there - I am so glad! - And yet I had expected her. What can I make of that? God knows, I do not, I only know that I thank Him that she had to evade me at His command.

Once, indeed, such a child of my fancy stood there - yet surely without my having done anything to bring it about - right there upon the spot which I had designated for her in my mind. Heavens, how I shook with fear! I did indeed approach her, but a feverish chill ran through all my veins. But unluckily, or luckily, two evil young lads stood near to us, giggling and pissing

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