Einstein, Albert. Extra-illustrated autograph letter signed, 28 March 1924....

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Einstein, Albert. Extra-illustrated autograph letter signed, 28 March 1924. Extra-illustrated autograph letter signed ("Albert"), 3 pages (approx. 5 x 6.75 in.; 127 x 171 mm.), in German, Berlin, 28 March 1924, written to his maternal uncle, Caesar Koch, who at the time of this letter was celebrating his 70th birthday. Einstein recalls his childhood and the gift of a "little steam engine" from his beloved maternal uncle - a fantastic early source of great inspiration for one of the twentieth century's greatest minds. Einstein writes in full: Dear Uncle! To bring our people to write letters a major event is required. This is now the case with your 70th birthday. But although I write so seldom, you are still my beloved uncle, in particular, one of the few people who warms my heart every time I think of you. Even when I was very young, a visit from you was a very special occasion, and I will remember for the rest of my life the wonderfully pretty little steam engine that you once brought back for me when you returned from Russia. [Einstein then pens a drawing of the steam engine.] Can you still recall it? Then when you came to see us in Munich with your slender and impish young wife and finally after many years when I visited you in Antwerp shortly before the marriage of Susanne [Caesar's daughter]. Unforgettable memories have remained. Since then I have often wished to visit, but I have never found a way as there was always a need to find something else that would fit in with a visit. And now you are celebrating your 70th birthday, and my hair is already nearly gray. Now I wish you happy years, and hope that you will continue to have with your dear children the same untroubled happiness that you have enjoyed until now. I salute you with all my heart, and be with my dear aunt in your lovely celebration remembered. By your Albert. A wonderful letter in which Einstein - on the occasion of his maternal uncle's 70th birthday - celebrates life and the joys of his childhood. The letter contains Einstein's marvelous rough sketch of the steam engine he received from his uncle when he returned once from a visit to Russia. By all accounts, the young Einstein possessed remarkable native talents. But they were slow to develop. As an infant, he was at first slow to speak. Even at the age of nine, Einstein could not speak with ease. Certain events were to prove stimulating to his young inquiring mind - such as the various gifts he received throughout his boyhood, including the steam engine he received from his maternal uncle. On another now-legendary occasion, when he was about five, Einstein received a compass. In his own autobiography, Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949), Einstein himself wrote that the gift of a compass from his father, Hermann Einstein, caused him to tremble and grow cold: "I experienced a miracle...as a child of four or five when my father showed me a compass...There had to be something behind objects that lay deeply hidden...the development of [our] world of thought is in a certain sense a flight away from the miraculous..." The fact that the needle, moved by an invisible force, always pointed in the same direction, made a lasting impression on the boy. Growing up in a stable and warm milieu, the young Einstein received continued inspiration from his extended family. Besides his beloved maternal uncle Caesar, there was also his paternal uncle Jakob, who inspired Einstein's early interest in mathematics by presenting the young lad with the gift of a geometry book. And then there was also Jewish medical student Max Talmey, a frequent guest at the Einstein family home, who gave the young Einstein popular books on science, technology, mathematics and philosophy.