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"Only a little remains for me to do, and that will suffice. A small house and garden is my whole property. A wife and four children

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, so six mouths and a dozen hands, compose my household. But for these mouths to eat well (and including their clothes and the rest) consumes almost completely the produce of those hands, though they go willingly to work. I have already described my cotton business. It is like a bird on the branch, like April weather

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. Whoever turns his whole attention to it and knows how to wait for the right time, can still make a good thing out of it. But I never had this talent in sufficient measure [...]

My children could do better but they could do worse too. I have to dress them as well as their neighbours, but I do not allow them to make any extravagant display. Aside from this I permit them, perhaps all too readily, all harmless pleasures, never deny them the means to take part in public festivities, the customary holidays and so on, and have even taken them with me on journeys, not long ones, but they cost me not a little [...] For the rest, I am happy when they are happy, and nothing distresses me so much as discontent on their part. And outside my house too, with other people, it is the same: I cannot bear to see sad faces and often pay out of my own pocket to cheer them [...] You see, my dear ones, that to heap up treasure goes wholly against my nature, nor do I believe that it would serve you any better. What will be of use and of benefit to you will be to learn from the very outset to earn your modest livings in honest independence. If God grants me life and health then I will try to provide for each of you as much as is possible in my circumstances. One of you will become the owner of my pretty little house, whose situation it now remains for me to describe:

My country is no Land of Cockayne, no Arabia Felix, no charming Pays de Vaud

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. It is the Tockenburg, whose inhabitants have from time immemorial been cried down as unquiet and uncivilised people. If anyone does them wrong in this, let him answer for it, I must inevitably appear partial should I declare the contrary. [...].

Our Tockenburg is a pleasant valley, about twelve hours' journey in length, surrounded by many smaller valleys and fertile hills. The main valley runs in a curve from the south-east down to the north-east. In the very midst of the same, on a small height, stands my noble residence, at the foot of a hill from whose summit one may enjoy a splendid view over almost the whole of the region; it has often afforded me the most rapturous pleasure to look down into the valley, so rich in villages, or up to the slopes on either side, clad with the most luscious pasture and timber, and again strewn with countless houses, over which the summits of the Alps rise high into the clouds, then down again to the Thur, coiling with many a meander through the midst of our valley, whose banks and meadows, planted with alder and willow, form the most agreeable of walks.

My timber cottage stands on the very spot where the landscape is at its most delightful, and consists of a parlour, three chambers, a kitchen and a cellar - damn it, I nearly forgot the back room! - a small goatshed, a woodshed, and then round about the house is the garden, furnished with a few small trees and well fenced by a thorn hedge. From my window I can hear the bells chime from three or four different places. Only a few steps from my door lies a pleasant shady paddock belonging to my neighbour. From thence I can look straight down to the Thur - over the bleaching-greens - to the pretty village of Wattwil and the little town of Lichtensteig, and yet further up the valley. Behind my house a stream runs down to the Thur, issuing from a romantic ravine where it rushes down over rocky crags. The far bank is a sunny copse bordered by a high cliff. There, every year, some sparrow-hawks or other hawks make their nest in an inaccessible cave. They, and a certain hill which from the time of the equinox delays the precious morning sunlight for me by an hour, are the only things pertaining to my dwelling that I dislike. I would

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This passage was written after the death of Bräker's son Jakob in January 1787.


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Bräker probably means that his business is subject to fluctuations beyond his control.


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The land of Cockayne and Arabia Felix were mythical lands where the good things of life could be obtained without hard work. The Pays de Vaud is a canton on the French-Swiss frontier.



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