The Making of a Man by Orison Swett Marden
The best parts of this book are the anecdotes about the lives of others.
The saddest part of this book is the expression of ideals that have been cast aside by our present society and culture. It’s depressing to see how far we have fallen and how the hopes of the author for the future have been replaced by rot.
It is impossible to read these old books without running off to a search engine every few pages to look up people who are mentioned. Which then leads to a new round of downloads from Google Books.