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The important characteristics, from eating and exercising to God, of life as such, have been scrutinized by the author, and here set forth in terms of his own philosophy. It has been very entertainingly done, although the contents are a bit difficult to describe comprehensively in a short review. He introduces his subject with a qualifying comment, “After having lived half a century I am undertaking to write on how to live. No doubt you will object that I am a little tardy, that such a work on the table of a man of my age is like serving mustard at the end of a dinner.” … “But life is an art that does not admit of infant prodigies.” To Franc-Nohain life is an art because it is always a choice and to live happily is to know how to make intelligent choices that will bring about pleasant emotional responses. It is also a game. But “life is life, which is the best discovery yet made on the subject. … One does not live one's life. One lives, that's all.”
In life we underestimate small physical joys, love ourselves more than anyone else; and spend much time in contemplating the subject of death. “We persist in thinking of life and death, as of two inveterate enemies constantly pitted against each other. But they do not combat: they exclude each other, which is not at all the same thing. … To try to frighten ourselves with what we cannot escape is not very clever.” … “It does not lie in wait for us; it has no need to. We shall not die without it, nor shall we live forever without its intervening on the way.”
The chapters on prosperity, reputation, uses of the mind, and on love and marriage are particularly interesting reading and filled with witticisms. Regarding imagination he remarks that this faculty is most valuable in many respects. It is through imagination that we escape from ourselves, lie to ourselves, and also control many other tendencies. “If we did not mix our daily life with a little imagination and poetry, that is to say, with a little falsehood, we should nev