Carstens, Asmus Jacob, a distinguished painter, born at St. Jurgen, near Sleswic, in 1754, died at Rome in 1798. (Encyclopaedia Americana, 1845.)

The one who reads Asmus Sempers Jugendland, will be charmed, above all, by the warmth of feeling and the gentle, good-natured humor which permeate the entire story.  The events and conditions described in it are, to be sure, commonplace and unimportant in themselves, but the author has fully succeeded in making them interesting and attractive.  His gifts as a lyric poet are evident in many instances.  He knows how to enliven the objects of nature.  While Asmus is still a very small child, he holds communion with nature, with the bushes, the trees, the pastures, and other objects; they all call to him and have messages for him.  How beautiful is the episode when Asmus for the first time gets a view of the great Elbe river, the soul of his native district! (Asmus Sempers Jugendland, Schmidt-Osthaus, 1916)