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grandfather, fifty years ago, that your sons would make such roads in the Toggenburg, on which kings and princes, even Oriental armies with their elephants and iron chariots, might journey in comfort - 'tis true, costly work, dear brother and countryman, but immortal work and worthy of glory. [...]". [Bräker goes on at some length about the value of new roads being worth the trouble and expense of building them.]
"Murmuring such words as these he came all unawares to Weil at eight in the morning, and would have got there an hour earlier, but that many objects such as the new roads, the cornfields ripening on all sides, and the heavy-laden fruit-trees had attracted his attention and made him stop and gaze upon them. Then he gave himself over to his thoughts and let many an acquaintance pass by without a word spoken. He might have taken a shorter way by Sirnach, Eschlikon, etc., to Winterthur. But he wished perforce to go by Weil, because it was market day there, also to remember the pleasure he felt there a year ago, when he saw and spoke with his dear Herr Councillor Füssli and his amiable spouse for the first time in his life. With inward remembrance and feelings of delight he espied the house where he met with this honour.
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, to which he alluded briefly in a previous diary, was finished. God grant it, time will tell. Now he took the road to Münchweilen, ate his midday meal, and out of the window he witnessed a wedding ceremony. He heard the comments that people were making all around him about the inequality of the wedding pair. They were a very young fellow and a widow with several children. Both bride and groom had tears in their eyes.Hm, thought he, I must enquire what people here think of a couple who weep at their wedding. With us it is held in some places for a good sign, and in others for a bad omen. [...] I think that neither laughing and weeping have anything to do with it, except to show the state of mind that the parties are in. And as I think, that really depends on their upbringing. In many places parents and teachers describe the married state to their children in repulsive terms (and I think that this is a mistake), but nevertheless in the foolish young things the natural instinct conquers all. With fear and trembling they join hands. Then on the wedding day all the repulsive images of marriage that they have absorbed come into their minds, and the foolish young things are very sober and more often than not already downcast and losing all their ardour. The solemnity, the preparations for all the ceremonies make the young people half melancholy and rob them of their courage and cheerfulness. And then the joining together, oh, oh, the all too final joining together, is often the last straw. Yet the man of sense knows how to cope, but the good-hearted stupid sheep often falls into worse misery than a slave of Algiers. Hey, countryman, he said to one who was firing off a gun right by his ear, why are the happy couple weeping? I don't know, said he, but I think they are not well matched, the fools, and that is setting out to be an unhappy marriage.
There we have it, thought the Poor Man, and went on his way, speculating in his own mind, mostly about marriage, until he came to a pleasant height from which the direct road from Elgg had led him. From this height there is a fine view all round far and wide. An honest kindly farmer pointed out to him all the places round about, the beautiful valleys, fields splendid with harvest and forests of fruit trees, the broad Sonnenberg shining before his eyes, and far down beyond Frauenfeld the wonderful landscape all spread out. All these charming objects drove out of his thoughts all the cares of the married state. Sweet, melancholy sensations spread through all his veins, his heart and the very marrow of his bones.
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Wetter affair: This had been finally settled by the Protestant Tagsatzung [Assembly] in Frauenfeld. [Chronik, p 350]
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