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Anna Katharina! Your saucy, impetuous character often makes me very anxious on your account. But still the sympathy and sensibility of your heart makes me truly happy whenever I see or learn of some proof of it in matters small or great. But your wilfulness could still cost you dear. You will have the same destiny as your mother, should you meet with the same fate in marriage, but if it should be otherwise, a husband with a similar temperament to your own - woe is me, what trouble there will be. For the rest, keep your innocence as did she who bore you, and Providence shall care for you, ordering what you deserve, or rather, what shall be good for you.

Johannes, my older son! O that you had inherited the character of your lost brother [...]. In you I can see only the half of myself, while in my eldest daughter I can see your mother to the full. Your shallow, changeable way of thinking, - if one can call it thinking - would often make me anxious and afraid, if I had not long since accustomed myself to trust everything to a higher Hand. And so my fatherly love helps me to hope for better things from you. But you have all the makings of an idler and a ne'er-do-well. Quick to lose your temper, quick to return to gentleness and obedience, but never steadfast in anything. If a helpmate is granted to you who knows how to guide you, things may go well enough, but if not, may God be your guide! [...] But you have not an ounce of taste for reading or for anything that might be called learning or knowledge, you would rather have stories of murders and ghosts or other adventures of that kind. And moreover you are never tired of chattering all the day long. I hope that I am mistaken - but - !

Jakob, my second son, in you I see myself as in a mirror, although our upbringing has been very different. I was reared in strictness and poverty, in a remote wilderness, you among young people and in milder surroundings, and because you were always sickly and often near to death, you were treated with indulgence and tenderness. If I had means to spend on you, I think that something good could be made of you, at least if I could count on your enjoying more robust health. Moreover, your brother is formed for rough work, but you for all sorts of gentler doings where one uses the head more than the hands. But I must set all my children to work in my business, and cannot let each one do as he likes. Yet I hope that you will nevertheless enjoy thinking, reading and writing as much as your father did, but you still sometimes show a tendency that I detest, to run from house to house to learn or tell some useless piece of gossip. But I am very perplexed as to how you shall earn your bread. Yet, if you use your head, and commit your way to the Lord who has already several times snatched you from the jaws of death, He will see to it.

Susanna Barbara, my second daughter. You volatile creature, swaying to every breeze! If you were a prince's child and brought up as such, one could make a female genius out of you. Your hawk's eyes make you hated by your brothers and sister, though you mean no harm. Your sensitive heart suffers under so many spiteful tongues, and the thunderous voice of your harsh taskmistress drives you to distraction. Alas! I fear that passions awakening too early and the weakness of your nerves, will cause you pain enough!

Anna Maria, my youngest daughter, my last-born child, the only one that still caresses me, and on whom I in my turn lavish all my remaining love! Quiet and unforthcoming, the most sedate of them all except for small outbreaks of teasing and stubbornness. You, my little pigeon, are always thinking more than you'll say. I trust you to become a good mother if Providence intends that you shall.

Now, my children! These are only small and hurriedly sketched portraits of you. Let none be angered, none jealous of another. My fatherly love surely enfolds you all, and lets me still hope for the best from you all. [...]

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