1.Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted&Bertrand Russell 1
2.Rivalry&E.V.Lucas 14
3.The Successful Doctor&George Bernard Shaw 20
4.Leisure&Vernon Lee 24
5.Poetry and University Education&Arthur Quiller-Couch 27
6.A Relic&Max Beerbohm 32
7.From the Mouse’s Point of View&Lord Dunsany 40
8.Romance&W.Somerset Maugham 45
9.On Being Hard Up&Jerome K.Jerome 51
10.Confidence&Joseph Conrad 60
11.The Drawing-Room&Mary E.Coleridge 68
12.Evolution&John Galsworthy 71
13.On Poverty&Hilaire Belloc 77
14.On Destroying Books&J.C.Squire 83
15.The Patron and the Crocus&Virginia Woolf 90
16.Fog&G.S.Street 98
17.Fact and Fiction&John Middleton Murry 103
18.Her Own Village&W.H.Hudson 109
19.Signs of Character&A.A.Milne 115
20.The Wife&H.V.Morton 119
21.Conversation&A.C.Benson 124
22.The Return from Siwa&E.M.Forster 133
23.On Running After One’s Hat&G.K.Chesterton 140
24.The Rose&Logan Pearsall Smith 146
25.Sunday Before the WarA.Clutton-Brock 150
26.Laughter in Court&Beverley Nichols 154
27.The Traveller’s Eye View&Aldous Huxley 158
28.Fifield Ashes&Maurice Henry Hewlett 165
29.The Barber&Arnold Bennett 171
30.Marriage&Y.Y 178
31.Set Free&R.B.Cunninghame Graham 184
32.This England&Edward Thomas 191
33.On Man’s Extravagance&J.B.Priestley 198
34.Actors&Augustine Birrell 204
35.An Afternoon Walk in October&William Hale White 214
36.On Talking to One’s Self&A.G.Gardiner 218
37.Cloud&Alice Meynell 223
38.Selections from The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft&George Gissing 228
39.Boswell’s Life of Johnson&George Gordon 236
40.Bed-Books and Night-Lights&H.M.Tomlinson 245
Appendix 255
1.The English Essayist&John Freeman 255
2.The Art of the Essayist&A.C.Benson 266
3.The Defects of English Prose&Arthur Clutton-Brock 275