1．The Beauty Industry&Aldous L.Huxley 1
2．Meditation on the Moon&Aldous L.Huxley 9
3．Punishment Never Cures Anything&Alexander Southerland Neil 16
4．Universities and Their Function&Alfred North Whitehead 29
5．In July&Alice Meynell 34
6．On Book-Buying&Augustine Birrell 39
7．What I Have Lived For&Bertrand Russell 49
8．August&Charles Dickens 52
9．The Child Angel:A Dream&Charles Lamb 55
10．Insouciance&D.H.Lawrence 61
11．Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature&David Hume 68
12．Journey Through a Tunnel&David Storey 78
13．Unworldliness of the Early Christians&Edward Gibbon 92
14．Take Your Home into Your Own Hands&Evelyn Waugh 96
15．Of Boldness&Francis Bacon 100
16．Of Studies&Francis Bacon 104
17．Of Youth and Age&Francis Bacon 108
18．Of Wisdom for a Man's Self&Francis Bacon 112
19．My Life Is Over&George Gissing 116
20．Politics and the English Language&George Orwell 119
21．Getting Up on Cold Mornings&James H.L.Hunt 147
22．A Passion for Cities&Jan Morris 158
23．First Snow&John Boynton Priestley 165
24．The Definition of a Gentleman&John Henry Newman 170
25．The Tapestry of Human Life&John Henry Newman 175
26．The Importance of One's Own Language&John Locke 178
27．Good and Evil&John Milton 181
28．About Books&John Ruskin 185
29．A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding&Jonathan Swift 192
30．Thoughts in Westminster Abbey&Joseph Addison 200
31．The Artist and the World&Joyce Cary 206
32．Upon Affectation&Lord Chesterfield 215
33．Heine and the Philistines&Matthew Arnold 223
34．National Prejudices&Oliver Goldsmith 233
35．Conversation&Samuel Johnson 240
36．On Idleness&Samuel Johnson 247
37．Preface to His Dictionary&Samuel Johnson 253
38．Companionship of Books&Samuel Smiles 265
39．On Recollections of Childhood&Sir Richard Steele 269
40．The Romance of History&Thomas Babington Macaulay 278
41．On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth&Thomas De Quincey 284
42．Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs&Thomas Paine 296
43．Her Own Village&W.H.Hudson 305
44．The Faces of Buddha&William Empson 313
45．An Afternoon Walk in October&William Hale White 324
46．On a Landscape of Nicholas Poussin&William Hazlitt 330
47．On Going a Journey&William Hazlitt 347
48．Lucidity,Simplicity,Euphony&William Somerset Maugham 370
49．Of Beauty,Fame,Longevity,etc.&William Somerset Maugham 386
50．The Philosopher&William Somerset Maugham 396
51．The Joys of Writing&Winston Churchill 409