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MY EARLIEST CHILDHOOD.
My father died in Leipzigerstrasse, where, two weeks after, I was born.
It is reported that I was an unusually sturdy, merry little fellow.

One of my father's relatives, Frau Mosson, said that I actually laughed on the third day of my life, and several other proofs of my precocious cheerfulness were related by this lady.
So I must believe that--less wise than Lessing's son, who looked at life and thought it would be more prudent to turn his back upon it--I greeted with a laugh the existence which, amid beautiful days of sunshine, was to bring me so many hours of suffering.
Spring was close at hand; the house in noisy Leipzigerstrasse was distasteful to my mother, her soul longed for rest, and at that time she formed the resolutions according to which she afterward strove to train her boys to be able men.

Her first object was to obtain pure air for the little children, and room for the larger ones to exercise.

So she looked for a residence outside the gate, and succeeded in renting for a term of years No.