I stumbled on this by coincidence when I was looking for other book. This book is one of the last books written by Samuel Smiles (Published around 1887). It is not a well-known work compared to his other books like Self Help or Character. Anyway, the books is just like his other books, full of biography examples and history illustrations. However, there is a difference in this one. He wrote it in his old age which gave it a different flavor. For example, the topic of death and old age is discussed in details in the book unlike his earlier books.

The topics discussed in this book include the power of will, work and its usefulness, punctuality, Education, character, inheritance, overwork, the pressure of brain work, habits, longevity, country boys and city boys, solitude, marriage, love, and death. These are only sliver of the information in the book. The last chapter in the book was dedicated to death, perhaps, because Samuel Smiles saw his end near, and meditated a lot on death. I really liked the closing remark of the book, and I include it in this review just to illustrate how beautiful is the writing of this forgotten author:

"We conclude with the words of Charles Fitz-Geoffry, the poet and preacher, who when speaking on the death of Mrs. Pym, the statesman's mother, in 1620, used these quaint but memorable words:" Man is, as it were, a book ; his birth is the title-page ; his baptism, the epistle dedicatory; his groans and crying, the epistle to the reader; his infancy and childhood, the argument and contents of the whole ensuing treatise; his life and actions, the subject; his crimes and errors, the faults escaped ; his repentance, the correction. Now there are some large volumes in folio; some little ones in sixteenmo; some are fayrer bound, some playner ; some in strong vellum, some in thin paper; some whose subject is piety and godliness, some (and too many such) pamphlets of wantonness and folly; but in the last page of every one, there stands a word which is finis, and this is the last word in every book. Such is the life of man : some longer, some shorter, some stronger, some weaker, some fairer, some coarser, some holy, some profane; but death comes in finis at the last, to close up the whole; for that is the end of all"

Not everybody likes the style that Samuel Smiles uses in his writing, but no one in his right mind will say that he did not learn something when he reads his books.