At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my chief happiness was to be with my mother. I shared her grief without understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her children, and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of life to her, she gave to us, she lived for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness. She was certainly most beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies at Dessau, not only in the eyes of her son, but as it seemed to me, of everybody. Then she had a most perfect voice, and when I first began music she helped and encouraged me in every possible way. We played _à quatre mains_, and soon she made me accompany her when she sang. As far as I can recollect, I was never so happy as when I could be with her. She read so much to us that I was quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of my young friends than I ought. When my mother said she wished to die, and to be with our father, I feel sure that my sister and I were only anxious that she should take us with her, for there were few golden chains that bound us as yet to this life. I see her now, sitting on a winter’s evening near the warm stove, a candle on the table, and a book from which she read to us in her hands, while the spinning-wheel worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on humming all the time. She read Paul Gerhard’s translation of St. Bernard’s: “Salve caput cruentatum, Totum spinis coronatum, Conquassatum, vulneratum, Arundine verberatum, Facies sputis illita.” “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn! O Haupt zu Spott gebunden Mit einer Dornenkron, O Haupt sonst schön gezieret Mit höchster Ehr und Zier, Jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret: Gegrüsset seist du mir!”