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they who in each and every adverse circumstance frighten and torment themselves to death, whereas I can be calm and resigned even while cares and sorrows redouble themselves.
25th July Yet in all resignation, all intention to remain calm and not to let oneself be affected, one still cannot make oneself immune from storms that rush in from outside and suddenly overcome us, seizing upon us in the first moment and working upon the body." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 352-354]
Bräker also records that his son-in-law Johannes Zwicky is trying by doubtfully legal means to reduce a debt of 300 guilders from Bräker to 100, and is threatening to abandon his wife and child. [Chronik, p 466]
26th July A day of vexations, the weather is bad and Bräker is in pain, hardly able to eat or drink. He writes to Füssli, sending thanks to Füssli's son for the latest book
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by Dr. Ebel. He tells Füssli that the local doctor is giving him sedatives. He asks Füssli to write, but in any case this letter will be his last. On the remaining days of July he notes the weather and the prospects for the harvest, also the deaths among his neighbours, finding some comfort in his faith. [Chronik, p 466]1st Aug. "So are you at last here, you on whom we have long since placed our hopes, that you should be the crown of the year, that you should completely ripen the fruits of the fields and lay up in the barns? I will indeed have little enjoyment of you, but my family that I leave behind, I wish that you may do heartily well by them.
2nd Aug. Indeed there is still a little letter to be written. But I have limited my correspondents almost to a single one, just because I have run out of material, to one whom my soul loves to the verge of idolatry. To him will I write for as long as I can stir a hand. I know that he will not ask for any learned matters from me, but what I write to him in all simplicity of heart, he is generous enough to accept and judge it, and gives himself the trouble to support me in all ways, to advise me, help me and comfort me. And to this same one individual the last little book that I wrote shall be dedicated as my memorial. It is indeed nothing, nothing at all. Save that it nevertheless says something of the manner of thinking of a poor untaught citizen of the world, on various subjects. Then also something of the story of his illness, of his feelings in the last days of his life. And so he will certainly not despise this my memorial." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 354-355]
Bräker has given up reading newspapers, because he has lost interest in politics. [Chronik, p 466]
6th Aug. Bräker writes to Girtanner: "But alas the hand is weak and slow and cannot keep my writing up with my thoughts - and - they too go more and more slowly; just as the spirits of life are little by little dulled and weakened until they lose themselves in the chief spirit - and that too loses itself in regions of infinity". On 7th-8th Aug. the Chronik [p 467] records that after several days of thunder the weather is cool and rainy. "Alas, not a ray of sunshine is vouchsafed to me". Bräker has lost all strength, he is thin and dejected, with pains in his limbs, a violent cough and pains in the throat which prevent him from eating and sleeping. Sometimes the pains leave him for a few hours and he feels more cheerful.
9th Aug. "Just today I received from my one friend, from the best among all good men, a letter full of comfort, giving new life to body and soul, in reading which I forget all my cares. So full of cheer, so full of comfort and refreshment for the soul, the like of which not all the pastors in the world were capable of providing. So entirely to my mind, written after my own heart and
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This was the first volume of "Schilderung der Gebirgsvölker der Schweiz" [Description of the mountain peoples of Switzerland], published in Leipzig in 1798.
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