“Young ladies, indelibly fix this shape of head in your memories. Any man who will make a natural, kind and true husband will have a head in outline from a side view like this.”

According to Louis Allen Vaught, the purpose of Vaught’s Practical Character Reader (1902) is to acquaint readers “with the elements of human nature and enable them to read these elements in all men, women and children in all countries.” Anxious, because of our project’s recourse to brow-speak, lest we be accused of harboring crypto-phrenological sentiments, HiLobrow.com presents this occasional series of reprints from Vaught’s Reader, which was donated to us by our friends at Pazzo Books, in the spirit of serious levitas.