Lifestyles Books

PREFACE. A recent work by M. Guyau was originally announced under the title of The Non-Religion of the Future, and, doubtless, an impression is generally prevalent that, with the modification or disappearance of traditional forms of Belief, the fate of Religion itself is involved. The present volume is a plea for a reconsideration of the Religious question, and an inquiry as to the possibility of... more...

ASSISTANT. 1. I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasure and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world. The greatest part of our British youth lose their figure, and grow out of fashion, by that time they are five and twenty. 2. As soon as the... more...

CHAPTER I. IMPORTANCE OF THE TIME OF YOUTH; DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS THAT WOMEN MEET WITH IN LIFE, AND THE NECESSITY OF PROVIDING FOR THEM. The most important period of life is that in which we are the better able, in making good use of the present, to repair the past and prepare for the future; that period holds the intermediate place between the age of infancy and the age of maturity, embracing the... more...

INTRODUCTION 1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure, of age and experience to warn and instruct youth and to come to the aid of inexperience. When sailors have discovered rocks or breakers, and have had the good luck to escape with life from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates or barbarians as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing of buoys and of lights, in order that... more...

Groundwork When you cut a melon, your friends will come with eager mouths and sit under your shade tree and help you eat it. Few of these friends would respond to your call for help when you were working in the hot sun raising that melon. Many people accept the dividends and benefits of friendship but give you a cold shoulder when called upon for assessments of friendship. The world is full of young... more...

DEAR BOY: I am edified with the allotment of your time at Leipsig; which is so well employed from morning till night, that a fool would say you had none left for yourself; whereas, I am sure you have sense enough to know, that such a right use of your time is having it all to yourself; nay, it is even more, for it is laying it out to immense interest, which, in a very few years, will amount to a... more...

INTRODUCTION One of the most vital and pregnant books in our modern literature, “Sartor Resartus” is also, in structure and form, one of the most daringly original. It defies exact classification. It is not a philosophic treatise. It is not an autobiography. It is not a romance. Yet in a sense it is all these combined. Its underlying purpose is to expound in broad outline certain ideas which lay at... more...

The Ruling Element "Jason and His Men."What constitutes a state?Not high-raised battlements or labored mound,  Thick wall or moated gate;Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;  Not bays and broad armed ports,Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;  Not starred and spangled courts,Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.  No! men--high-minded men--With powers... more...

Is there anything whereof it may be said,See, this is new!It hath been already of old time,Which was before us.There is no remembrance of former things;Neither shall there be any remembranceOf things that are to comeWith those that shall come after. In these days, when all things and memories of the past are at length become not only subservient to, but submerged by, the matters and needs of the... more...

Lecture One. GIRLHOOD. If the angels look down upon earth and behold any natural object with especial delight, it must be Girlhood. And yet if they are not gifted with prophetic vision, they must tremble with fearful solicitude while they gaze delighted. There is a fearfulness in the beauty of Girlhood which mingles anxiety in the cup of admiration. No good being can look upon it without casting a... more...