It was the year 1790 when I came to Prague in order to further advance my studies. My brother, a cloth dealer, found a room for me in the Neustadt, and required me to visit the Kleinseitner Gymnasium because of the German language. The precious time, which I spent over a year and a half on the frightful stretch from the Rosmarkt to the Karmelite Gasse, twice a day, was time wasted that could never be brought back.

To see myself in the lively royal city, and to be deeply loved by my brother Jakob - what could be lacking in this first moment? Through many encounters with people of very diverse backgrounds I had enough occasion to gradually acquire a significant knowledge of men. In short, I felt entirely happy in my new situation. The little clavichord, my constant companion, had to sweeten every free moment that was left over from my schoolwork. Just as it is rare for man to have unperturbed satisfaction as his inheritance, I was in this case no exception. Not only my chilblains, which sometimes ached, and when I stretched out my fingers, even forced me to stop playing the clavichord, left me frightened, but my all too rural clothing, designed to last, was very annoying; for each time that I went to the school I was laughed at by my fellow students. My brother realized that my clothing was not suitable for Prague, and provided me with an entirely new outfit, and the “hee-hee” of my fellow students was then transformed into “Ah!”

The abandoned pieces of clothing were sold to the Jews, whereby I realized that coarse cloth and bock leather were worth much more than I had believed, for they gave me three times as much as I demanded, indeed, they contended and quarreled among themselves; I, however, took the money that they pushed on me, and went on my way, unconcerned with how they would divide things up.

In the evening I went to the theater, in order to hear the opera “Die eingebildeten Philosophen” by Paisiello; it made an inextinguishable impression on me, caused more by the musical-dramatic life, rather than Paisiello's composition.