hat Tolstoi eats and how he sleeps. Here
Rockefeller is the national hero. The artist here lacks artistic
obstinacy; he succumbs to money, he leaves starvation and his _Kunst_.

* * * * *

ASCH loves Shakespere above all other writers; he is his master. For
months he went each night to the Berlin theatres and often, with his
eyes shut, would listen to the words and cadences of Shakespere's
lines. _Hamlet_ he considers the greatest play ever written.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _Romeo and Juliet_ are two of his
favorites. From the ghost scene in _Hamlet_ he can trace Maeterlinck
and all the modern mystics. He says that Shakespere is universal in
his appeal and that his work in translation, when done by a master
like Schlegel, takes on the peculiar flavor of the tongue and people
into which it is translated and loses none of its intrinsic worth.

He loves Gogol and Tolstoi. _Faust_ is one of his favorite dramas. He
loves the old masters Greco and Rembrandt; among the moderns, Cezanne,
Puvis de Chavannes, Manet. In opera he does not care for Wagner, but
he is very fond of _The Magic Flute_, of _Madame Butterfly_, of
_Pagliacci_. He loves music and the theatre. Asch reads in many
languages, German, French, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, and a little
English. But to everybody he talks in Yiddish. He has no ear for other
languages except English, which he says is like his mother tongue!

In the spring Asch goes out to the country and works, in the summer he
loafs, in the winter he lives among his friends. He writes all the
time, being chock full of energy--for work, for love, for friendship,
for happiness. As he says, "I am thankful to God for three things:
first that he gave me life, second that he gave me my talent, third
for my love for you" (this to whomever the lady happens to be).

Like all the artists he is erratic, original, attractive, all-seeing.
But unlike most he has much strength of character and a brilliant
logical faculty that makes him check up his personal relations. He has
much affection in him and a great honesty and integrity which wins him
admiration and respect, and he has many friends among many kinds of
people in many parts of the world.

Sholom Asch is a philosopher, a novelist, a poet, and a dramatist. He
loves the clouds and the sea, he truly loves mankind. Always through
all he writes one feels a deep and elemental strength, an elemental
belief in nature and truth.