“This evening, at a quarter to ten, my Lina brought forth a small, well-formed baby girl. The child seems to be in good health, for it has sneezed a dozen times already. The mother is healthy. At seven o’clock this evening, my wife was still knitting. The contractions came in quick succession and must have been vigorous, for she cried out several times, so much that her screams might have been heard in the street. Nevertheless, she smiled at me in the intervals and sought to comfort me, instead of me her. If the child would simply sleep in the meantime and not cry, the mother would certainly sleep as well. The little one has already taken her mother’s milk three times. Three times has she freed herself from the bed with her tiny arms. That’s the story of the little one’s life so far.”
– Friedrich to his brother Johann Friedrich, called Hans