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Indeed the Bible says that those who pray rightly pray in spirit and in truth. And so where the heart does not pray, all babbling of the lips is in vain. So leave me in peace, dear governess, and do not plague me all the time with your reproaches. As for a little place on the far side of the grave, do not vex yourself on my behalf. I have already settled my accounts. My bad deeds have been forgiven and forgotten and the good ones may survive us both and be of some advantage to our descendants.

17th July Life is a dream. Every mortal will and must in the end recognise this, however little he may have believed it before. Everything under the sun is vanity, thus spoke Solomon in his wisdom, who himself had tried and enjoyed all possible pleasures under the sun. But it does not need one so wise, it does not need a Solomon. Any other man of common understanding can say that, will say that, whether he has enjoyed all or only a few of the world's pleasures. And so it is with me now. I would not give an empty nutshell for all the splendour of the world, and if it were possible that someone were to tell me that I was to become healthy and young again, so that I might enjoy just those splendours and pleasures, I would in truth have to consider a long time before I minded to do so. [...] He who delights in well-doing and working for good, he dreams away his life in the most agreeable fashion, his life alone has worth." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 349-352]

18th-19th July Bräker addresses the noble men of the world who are, in his opinion, the only ones worthy to live on in a better world. He thinks himself fortunate to have such a noble friend at the end of his life. [Chronik, p 465] In a letter to Girtanner on the 9th [Chronik, p 464] he declares that he loves him "as Solomon did his bride".

20th July "I have written today to my kind host and benefactor at the Riedtli near Zürich. Already last spring, just after my return, I wrote to him. But to date I have had no answer. At the time the place was swarming with Frenchmen. I think that my letter may have gone astray, or my correspondence is of no interest to him.

21st July All my correspondents have abandoned me, except for one [Girtanner], whom may God preserve for me to the end. But partly it is that I have also abandoned them, from consciousness of my inability to entertain learned men with my letters. And they have abandoned me, because at the beginning it was only their curiosity and love of novelty that made them seek my acquaintance, to find out if there was more in me than met the eye. O how good it is, that things are as they are now. Now I should be truly helpless and unfit to come up to their expectations."

Mayer [p 74] says that by this time Switzerland had been plundered so thoroughly by the French that even the upper classes were finding life hard and the future uncertain. This may explain why Bräker did not receive more help from Füssli and other friends.

22nd July "It would be sinfully ungrateful of me to murmur against fate, because in comparison with others I have many reasons to call myself fortunate. What advantages I enjoy, who like many others belongs to the class of poor people, who often have to die uncared for, on straw or even in the dirt, from lack of the most necessary provisions for life. My good Genius has always provided for me benevolent men who will not let me lack for anything. Just now I have heard from my benefactor, from my one and only friend in St. Gallen, necessary provisions for many weeks, which God will surely repay him.

23rd July My good genius inspires me with trust and resignation, to submit myself willingly to the common lot of mortals, far from all anxious fear and dismay, he provides me with patience and a cheerful spirit, and makes every day flow one after another so pleasantly.

24th July Thanks to the source of all things, eternal thanks for the happy nature that fell to my lot. O how I pity those brothers and sisters of mine in the world who have exactly the opposite,

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