He now claimed the hand of his chosen love and established in the book business, labored so unceasingly, that the business increased.  Then he moved to a more favorable location, choosing the mining town of Zwickau, in Saxony.

Here, this industrious, honorable man and his attractive, intelligent, but rather narrow and uneducated young wife lived out their lives, and brought up their children, of whom Robert, born June 8, 1810, was the youngest; before him there were three brothers and a sister.  All passed away before Robert himself.

He was the so-called “handsome child” of the family, and much petted by the women.  Besides his mother there was his god-mother, who was very fond of him, and at her home he would spend whole days and nights.  As his talents developed, the boy became the spoilt darling of everybody.  This lay at the foundation of his extreme susceptibility, even the obstinacy of his riper years.

Little Robert at six was sent to a popular private school and now for the first time mingled with a number of children of his own age.  The first symptoms of ambition, the source of much of his later achievement, began to show itself, though quite unconsciously.  It made him the life of all childish games.  If the children played “soldiers,” little Robert was always captain.  The others loved his good nature and friendliness, and always yielded to him.

He was a good student in the primary school, but in no way distinguished himself in his studies.  The following year he was allowed to take piano lessons of an old pedantic professor from Zwickau High School.  This man had taught himself music, but had heard little of it.  The kind of instruction he was able to give may be imagined, yet Robert was faithful all his life to this kind old friend.

In spite of inadequate guidance, music soon kindled the boy’s soul.  He began to try to make music himself, though entirely ignorant of the rules of composition.  The first of these efforts, a set of little dances, were written during his seventh or eighth year.  It was soon discovered that he could improvise on the piano; indeed he could sketch the disposition of his companions by certain figures on the piano, so exactly and comically that every one burst out laughing at the portraits.  He was fond of reading too, much to his father’s delight, and early tried his hand at authorship.  He wrote robber plays, which he staged with the aid of the family and such of his youthful friends as were qualified.  The father now began to hope his favorite son would become an author or poet; but later Robert’s increasing love for music put this hope to flight.

The father happened to take his boy with him to Carlsbad in the summer of 1819, and here he heard for the first time a great pianist, Ignatz Moscheles.  His masterful playing made a great impression on the nine year old enthusiast, who began now to wish to become a musician, and applied himself to music with redoubled zeal.  He also made such good progress at school that at Easter 1820 he was able to enter the Zwickau Academy.