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decade later]
. Bräker is angry about the hidden enmity directed against Giezendanner, which arises from the affair of Captain Wetter. [Chronik, p 324]

20th Apr. "Monday was the day of the annual meeting of the Moral Society. Captain Wetter of Ganterschweil, a strong, handsome, companionable man, who was a Landrat [provincial councillor] and a captain, and held other offices besides, is truly no more than a downright coarse Toggenburg peasant. His coarse utterances concerning a sermon I have already mentioned last year, also that the same moved the whole of the clergy of the Toggenburg, and those who have influence in the Faculty of Theology, to convene a special ecclesiastical court [...] On Monday I grew hot under the collar. I saw the members of the Society forging secret attacks. I thought about how last year they had said polite things, paid compliments, all kinds of flattery - I thought: whoever puts his faith in mankind is a fool. Formerly these black-coats bowed and scraped, bowed and scraped. Now, when their Timon

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has fallen from favour, they won't do themselves the honour of setting their holy feet on his threshold." Some of the Moral Society's meetings were held in Giezendanner's house. Apparently the hostility against Giezendanner stemmed from his reading out a public notice concerning the Wetter case, which caused him to appear to set the verdict of a Catholic court above a Protestant one. [Bräker remained constantly loyal to Giezendanner throughout the controversy and until the latter's death.] [Voellmy, v 1 p 54, Chronik, p 325]

1st May Tuesday before Ascension. [The Chronik, p 325, gives the dates for this journey as 29th-30th April]

"When the dear sun rose I had to stand still on that height and admire, full of rapture, God's majestic world - and that was a small point of our round world, perhaps thirty hours walk across the Bodensee - as far as across the Black Forest - then a part of our proud and still silver-white Schweiz mountains - In St. Gallen a few wonderful hours in Squire Gonzenbach's house, with his tutor Herr Grob from here - my dear fellow-countryman and friend - If only the vexatious catarrh had left me but for these hours - but all the generous marks of kindness - all the tender loving greetings - the interesting and familiar conversations were indeed some balm for the tightness of my chest - but by far not what they might have been - without strength - almost ready to collapse - I came again to Herisau after dark." [Voellmy, v 3 p 56]

4th May From time to time Pastor Imhof tells Bräker that his autobiography has gone down well with its readers. Some tourists have visited the pastor and asked to see the author. Bräker willingly introduces himself and is glad "to see such fine gentlemen and converse with them for a short while." [Chronik, p 326]

25th May The price of food is going up. The trade treaty of 1786 between England and France allows England to export to France, so that Switzerland is losing its market in France. But the harvest this year is promising.

The swallows who nested in Bräker's room last year - or their descendants - are nesting again. He would dearly like to ask them where they spent the winter, cannot believe that they spend it sleeping.

[This is interesting, as it shows that Bräker was ahead of his contemporary the English naturalist Gilbert White, who did believe that swallows hibernated.]

Bräker and his daughter visit Glarus. He says that the people of Glarus, though they have little education, have quick wits, especially in political matters, the young people of Toggenburg could take lessons from them. [Chronik, pp 326-327]

1st June Bräker reports the burial of a young man who was accidentally smothered during the making of the road in the Hummelwald. In spite of the continued disputes about this road, several hundred people are working on it, including Bräker's son Johannes. [Chronik, p 327]

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An allusion to Shakespeare's play "Timon of Athens".



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