Take It from Me

Animated by the vibrant, cheerful spirit of pre-World War I America, this 1916 guide to "the philosophy of Otherfellowship" is like Adam Smith meets Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: it's a directive to living with the kind of gung-ho American enthusiasm and expansive spirit that the Gilded Age was bursting with. From the one basic human law we all must follow-"Be good!"-to our "immense and imperative" duty to vote, this little book contains all manner of wisdom for relating to your fellow human beings:

. "Decent living... consists in not being frightened, not being fat, and not being sentimental."
. "It is precisely because it is predestined that friendship is at once mysterious and precious."
. "If your work hasn't in it the essential quality of being good for the Other Fellow, he will not pay for it."

Loving thy neighbor was never so easy-or so entertaining-as pioneering self-help guru Thompson made it sound almost a century ago.

VANCE THOMPSON (1863-1925) is also the author of Eat and Grow Thin and The Ego Book.