 „..my grandfather told me the anecdote in which the gypsy asked to be shown the enemy before a battle, because he wanted to make peace with them.At that time I thought the anecdote true, and considered the gypsys more advanced, being they were only ones able to think right.”

On the death of his two older brothers, he became the eldest child (the fourth sibling died later), who often had to take care of the younger ones.That task quite exhausted him, and when the five-month-old little brother John died of meningitis, he went into shock.