AZR disputes Ahad Ha'am's self-deprecation (he called himself "a guest in literature"), and testifies to his exactingness:
"That he was a writer, and a writer by divine grace — that is beyond all doubt… Nothing left his hands that was not fully polished and perfected. Would that 'the writers' were as careful with every utterance they put forth as this guest-writer was." AZR, "On the Life of Ahad Ha'am," "Davar," 5687 (1927); Project Ben-Yehuda.
Of the editing of "HaShiloah," AZR writes that it was no commercial venture but a vision:
"Ahad Ha'am's program was a deep spiritual demand: to lift our literature out of the swamp, to purify it, to beautify it, and at the same time to revive the heart of the people and raise it up." Ibid. (AZR describes the drudgery of correcting the manuscripts of "the masters of flowery rhetoric," each of whom considered himself a little Ahad Ha'am.)
After five years and ten volumes, the owners of "Ahiasaf" cut his salary from 1,500 to 900 rubles; Ahad Ha'am resigned. And here lies the tragedy:
"And Ahad Ha'am fell silent, and Ahad Ha'am became a clerk in Wissotzky's tea shop. For twenty-five years he was occupied with selling tea. And his love of literature he buried deep, deep in his heart…" Ibid.
Visiting Ahad Ha'am at the end of his life, AZR heard the painful confession:
"I envy you, my dear friend, that you are still working; while I, when I go to lie down in the evening, give myself an account: how did the whole day pass for me?… I did nothing, I added nothing; the day passed as though it had never been." Ibid. (Ahad Ha'am's words to AZR).
AZR closes with a cry over the fact that no one could be found to fund the 600 rubles a year that would have allowed Ahad Ha'am to keep writing: "Where shall we hide from our shame?"