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1795 aged 59

2nd Jan. Bräker has decided to stop making plans for the future: "...they are dreams indeed - but how pleasant are sweet dreams - often have I conjured such up for a whole day, and it did me good ... often the thought has come into my head - that even without any resurrection of the body - that other life consisted only of such sweet dreams - that would be blessedness enough." [Chronik, p 418]

8th Jan. Salome and Johannes Zwicky are away from home, leaving Bräker with Anna Maria, his daughter-in-law Anna Dorothea, and her two-year-old child Salome. He takes the chance to write letters and rejoices in the benefits gained from correspondence with friends. [Chronik, p 418.]

2nd Feb. After a very cold spell the ice is breaking up in the Thur, huge masses of ice are piling up on the banks. Bräker wishes they could be sold in warmer lands. [Chronik, pp 418-419]

8th and 15th Feb. Despite his burden of debt Bräker has some pleasure in life, and hopes to be useful to the people around him. He would like to bring happiness to others, including those he finds unpleasant, "bringing happiness is truly one of the main causes - of my burden of debts - my children in particular ... so I have to limit my bringing of happiness to what does not cost money". [Chronik, p 419]

26th Feb. Daniel Girtanner reads his first paper on music to the Literary Society at St. Gallen.

"Truly, for me it signifies no trifle. At least the following event was fairly vexing for me. On my journey in autumn I had left in Bern some wares for the use of a very kind lady friend. A few weeks before Christmas the account was generously paid to me, and I was told that again on Christmas and New Year she could use some more of the same articles. Without delay I collected the wares together. I packed them up to send them via Zürich to Bern and wrote two letters to enclose with it, and intended to hand the parcel and the letters to our Zürich carrier. But because of the Christmas holiday he had left two days earlier, and I had heard no word of this. Now I was fairly in a dilemma. I asked around in the town if I might be able to send them on afterwards. Yes, said a carter to me. He would take them in the early morning to Uznach and then hand them over to the Glarus carrier who was going to Zürich. I was happy at that. I gave him the money and a little more for his trouble.

Next week the carter arrived. He said that the parcel was still in Uznach. For he had lost the letter with it and all his enquiries to seek out the finder of it had been in vain. But I should not be angry with him. Damn it, said I, that packet should have been in Bern by this time. On the spot I wrote out a notice for the parcel and next day I wrote two more letters in order to send them after the parcel. And once again, for various reasons the carrier had left a day earlier. So I was again obliged to give these two letters enclosed together to a carter, who on the same evening went as far as the nearest inn on the main road, where in the morning the carrier from Sax went past on the way to Zürich. I gave him the postage for the letter and though going only half an hour's journey, something for himself. And then what happens? I did not doubt, since I knew the driver and the innkeeper well, that the letter had been rightly delivered. But more than that, I asked the innkeeper, whom I met by chance, whether such and such a letter had been handed on to the Sax carrier. He did not know, he said. He had indeed seen a letter lying in his house, whose postage was paid to Zürich. But there was nothing with it. So nobody had wanted to take it with them. God in Heaven, said I, and I paid the man double postage. Is that not a mucky trick to play!

Next day I went in person to the said inn. I thought that the people in the house might give me better information or that I might find the letters still lying there, which is what I should have preferred. No, said the innkeeper's sister. The letter is no longer here. But I had trouble in sending it on without the postage. I sent the postage with it, said I. But the rascal has kept it for himself.

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