After he became Chancellor Hitler had to accept a certain degree of routine. This was against his natural inclination. He hated systematic work, hated any discipline. Administration bored him and he usually left, as much as he could to others. When he had a big speech to prepare he would put off beginning work on it until the last moment. Once he could bring himself to begin dictating he worked himself into a passion rehearsing the whole performance and shouting so loudly that his voice echoed through the neighboring rooms. The speech composed, he was a man with a load off his mind. He would invite his secretaries to lunch praising and flattering them and amusing them. Most North Germans regarded such lack of discipline as a typically Austrian characteristic. In Hitler's eyes it was part of his artist nature: he should have been a great painter or architect, he complained, and not a statesman at all. Hitler held strong views on art, and would put up with no disagreement. He passionately hated all forms of modern art. His taste was for the Classical models of Greece and Rome, and Romantic art of the nineteenth century. Gothic and renaissance Art were too Christian for his liking. He also looked on himself as highly musical, though his liking for music did not extend very much beyond the operas of Wagner, some of Beethoven and light operettas such as Lahar's Merry Widow. He was also fond of the cinema and when the Chancellery was rebuilt be had a little cinema put in, and frequently watched films in the evening, including many of the foreign films he had forbidden in Germany. He had a passion for big rooms, thick carpets and tapestries, but apart from this he had very simple tastes. He like being driven fast in a powerful car; he liked cream cakes and sweets; he liked flowers, dogs and the company of pretty—not clever women; he liked being at home in the Bavarian mountains. It was in the evenings that Hitler woke up. He hated going to bed, for he found it difficult to sleep, and after dinner he would gather his guest round the big fireplace and talk on every subject under the sun until two or three o' clock in the morning. Next morning he would not rise until eleven. Hitler ate very little, and neither smoked nor drank. He kept a special vegetarian cook but declared that eating meat or cooked meals was a bad habit that had led to the decay of past civilizations. He never touched even tea or coffee and the chief reason for his dislike of stimulants seems to have been anxiety about his health. He took little exercise and had a horror of catching a cold or any form. of infection. He was depressed at the thought of dying early, before he had had time to complete his schemes, and hoped to add years to his life by careful dieting. The author says that when Hitler came to power he ______.