The Life of a Citizen at Home & in Foreign Service (Classic Reprint)

It has often been asserted that the life of any man is worth writing so long as it shall be written honestly, extenuating nothing and setting down nought in malice. It is still true that the proper study of mankind is man; we all need to know more about one another so that we can know more about ourselves. Of course, the lives best worth writing are those of the leaders, of those who have guided the state in moments of crisis or have helped to set forth the ideals that lift man above the beast and make human existence worth while. Unfortunately the men whose careers have been the fullest, the most interesting and the most significant, have not often cared to take their contemporaries into their confidence and to survey their own deeds dispassionately; nor have they always possessed the power to set down a plain tale or to tell the truth about themselves as well as about others. Bagehot once asserted the sole reason why so few good books were written was because the men who had done things and seen things could rarely write convincingly, whereas those who could write had rarely seen or done anything. Perhaps there is no need for us to insist on the high standard here suggested by the uncompromising British
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org