How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day
by Arnold Bennett
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION
This preface, though placed at the beginning, as a preface must be,
should be read at the end of the book.
I have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this
small work, and many reviews of it--some of them nearly as long
as the book itlf--have been printed. But scarcely any of the
comment has been adver. Some people have objected to a
frivolity of tone; but as the tone is not, in my opinion, at all
frivolous, this objection did not impress me; and had no weightier
reproach been put forward I might almost have been persuaded that
the volume was flawless! A more rious stricture has, however,
been offered--not in the press, but by sundry obviously sincere
correspondents--and I must deal with it. A reference to page 43
will show that I anticipated and feared this disapprobation. The
ntence against which protests have been made is as follows:--
"In the majority of instances he [the typical man] does not
precily feel a passion for his business; at best he does not
dislike it. He begins his business functions with some reluctance,
as late as he can, and he ends them with joy, as early as he can.
And his engines, while he is engaged in his business, are ldom at
their full 'h.p.'"
I am assured, in accents of unmistakable sincerity, that there are
many business men--not merely tho in high positions or with fine
prospects, but modest subordinates with no hope of ever being
much better off--who do enjoy their business functions, who do not
shirk them, who do not arrive at the office as late as possible and
depart as early as possible, who, in a word, put the whole of their
force into their day's work and are genuinely fatigued at the end
thereof.
I am ready to believe it. I do believe it. I know it. I always
knew it. Both in London and in the provinces it has been my lot to
spend long years in subordinate situations of business; and the fact
did not escape me that a certain proportion of my peers showed what
amounted to an honest passion for their duties, and that while奇迹之海歌词
engaged in tho duties they were really *living* to the fullest
extent of which they were capable. But I remain convinced that
the fortunate and happy individuals (happier perhaps than they
blow meguesd) did not and do not constitute a majority, or anything like
a majority. I remain convinced that the majority of decent average
conscientious men of business (men with aspirations and ideals) do
not as a rule go home of a night genuinely tired. I remain
convinced that they put not as much but as little of themlves as
they conscientiously can into the earning of a livelihood, and that
their vocation bores rather than interests them.
Nevertheless, I admit that the minority is of sufficient importance
to merit attention, and that I ought not to have ignored it so
completely as I did do. The whole difficulty of the hard-w
orking
minority was put in a single colloquial ntence by one of my
correspondents. He wrote: "I am just as keen as anyone on doing
something to 'exceed my programme,' but allow me to tell you that
when I get home at six I am not anything like so fresh
as you em to imagine."
Now I must point out that the ca of the minority, who throw
themlves with passion and gusto into their daily business task, is
infinitely less deplorable than the ca of the majority, who go
half-heartedly and feebly through their official day. The former
are less in need of advice "how to live." At any rate during their
official day of, say, eight hours they are really alive; their
engines are giving the full indicated "h.p." The other eight
working hours of their day may be badly organid, or even frittered
away; but it is less disastrous to waste eight hours a day than
sixteen hours a day; it is better to have lived a bit than never to
have lived at all. The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who is
braced to effort neither in the office nor out of it, and to this
man this book is primarily addresd. "But," says the other and
more fortunate man, "although my ordinary programme is bigger than
his, I want to exceed my programme too! I am living a bit; I want
to live more. But I really can't do another day's work on the top of
my official day."
The fact is, I, the author, ought to have foreen that I should
appeal most strongly to tho who already had an interest in
existence. It is always the man who has tasted life who demands
more of it. And it is always the man who never gets out of bed
who is the most difficult to rou.
Well, you of the minority, let us assume that the intensity of your
daily money-getting will not allow you to carry out quite all the
suggestions in the following pages. Some of the suggestions may
yet stand. I admit that you may not be able to u the time spent
on the journey home at night; but the suggestion for the journey to
the office in the morning is as practicable for you as for anybody.
And that weekly interval of forty hours, from Saturday to Monday, is
yours just as much as the other man's, though a slight accumulation
of fatigue may prevent you from employing the whole of your "h.p."
upon it. There remains, then, the important portion of the three or
more evenings a week. You tell me flatly that you are too tired to
do anything outside your programme at night. In reply to which I
tell you flatly that if your ordinary day's work is thus exhausting,
then the balance of your life is wrong and must be adjusted. A
man's powers ought not to be monopolid by his ordinary day's work.
What, then, is to be done?
The obvious thing to do is to circumvent your ardour for your
ordinary day's work by a ru. Employ your engines in something
beyond the programme before, and not after, you employ them on the
programme itlf. Briefly, get up earlier in the morning. You say
y
ou cannot. You say it is impossible for you to go earlier to bed
of a night--to do so would upt the entire houhold. I do not
think it is quite impossible to go to bed earlier at night. I think
that if you persist in rising earlier, and the conquence is
insufficiency of sleep, you will soon find a way of going to bed
earlier. But my impression is that the conquences of rising
earlier will not be an insufficiency of sleep. My impression,
growing stronger every year, is that sleep is partly a matter of
habit--and of slackness. I am convinced that most people sleep as
long as they do becau they are at a loss for any other diversion.
How much sleep do you think is daily obtained by the powerful
skincarehealthy man who daily rattles up your street in charge of Carter
Patterson's van? I have consulted a doctor on this point. He is a
doctor who for twenty-four years has had a large general practice in
a large flourishing suburb of London, inhabited by exactly such
people as you and me. He is a curt man, and his answer was curt:
"Most people sleep themlves stupid."
He went on to give his opinion that nine men out of ten would have
better health and more fun out of life if they spent less time in
bed.
Other doctors have confirmed this judgment, which, of cour, does
not apply to growing youths.
Ri an hour, an hour and a half, or even two hours earlier; and--if
you must--retire earlier when you can. In the matter of exceeding
programmes, you will accomplish as much in one morning hour as
in two evening hours. "But," you say, "I couldn't begin without
some food, and rvants." Surely, my dear sir, in an age when an
excellent spirit-lamp (including a saucepan) can be bought for less
than a shilling, you are not going to allow your highest welfare to
depend upon the precarious immediate co-operation of a fellow
creature! Instruct the fellow creature, whoever she may be, at
night. Tell her to put a tray in a suitable position over night.
On that tray two biscuits, a cup and saucer, a box of matches and a
spirit-lamp; on the lamp, the saucepan; on the saucepan, the lid--
but turned the wrong way up; on the reverd lid, the small teapot,
containing a minute quantity of tea leaves. You will then have to
strike a match--that is all. In three minutes the water boils, and
you pour it into the teapot (which is already warm). In three more
minutes the tea is infud. You can begin your day while drinking
it. The details may em trivial to the foolish, but to the
词根词缀thoughtful they will not em trivial. The proper, wi balancing
of one's whole life may depend upon the feasibility of a cup of tea
at an unusual hour.
A. B.
CONTENTS
掘井及泉
PREFACE, V
I THE DAILY MIRACLE, 21
II THE DESIRE TO EXCEED ONE'S PROGRAMME, 28
III PRECAUTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING, 35
IV THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE, 42
V TENNIS AND THE IMMORTAL SOUL, 49
VI REMEMBER HUMAN NATURE, 56
VII CONTROLLING THE MIND, 62
VIII THE REFLECTIVE MOOD
, 69
IX INTEREST IN THE ARTS, 76
X NOTHING IN LIFE IS HUMDRUM, 83
XI SERIOUS READING, 90
XII DANGERS TO AVOID, 97
I
THE DAILY MIRACLE
"Yes, he's one of tho men that don't know how to manage.
Good situation. Regular income. Quite enough for luxuries
as well as needs. Not really extravagant. And yet the fellow's
always in difficulties. Somehow he gets nothing out of his
money. Excellent flat--half empty! Always looks as if he'd had
the brokers in. New suit--old hat! Magnificent necktie--baggy
trours! Asks you to dinner: cut glass--bad mutton, or Turkish
coffee--cracked cup! He can't understand it. Explanation simply
is that he fritters his income away. Wish I had the half of it!
I'd show him--"
So we have most of us criticid, at one time or another, in our
superior way.
四级听力mp3We are nearly all chancellors of the exchequer: it is the pride of
the moment. Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live
on such-and-such a sum, and the articles provoke a correspondence
who violence proves the interest they excite. Recently, in a
daily organ, a battle raged round the question whether a woman can
unionidexist nicely in the country on L85 a year. I have en an essay,
"How to live on eight shillings a week." But I have never en an
essay, "How to live on twenty-four hours a day." Yet it has been
said that time is money. That proverb understates the ca. Time
is a great deal more than money. If you have time you can obtain
money--usually. But though you have the wealth of a cloak-room
attendant at the Carlton Hotel, you cannot buy yourlf a minute
more time than I have, or the cat by the fire has.
Philosophers have explained space. They have not explained time.
It is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is
possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily
miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You
wake up in the morning, and lo! your pur is magically filled with
twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the univer of
your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of posssions. A
highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular
arakanas the commodity itlf!
For remark! No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And
no one receives either more or less than you receive.
Talk about an ideal democracy! In the realm of time there is no
aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect. Genius is
never rewarded by even an extra hour a day. And there is no
punishment. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you
will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. Mo mysterious
power will say:--"This man is a fool, if not a knave. He does not
derve time; he shall be cut off at the meter." It is more certain
than consols, and payment of income is not affected by Sundays.
Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into
debt! You can only waste the passi
ng moment. You cannot waste
to-morrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it
is kept for you.
I said the affair was a miracle. Is it not?
You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it
you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the
evolution of your immortal soul. Its right u, its most effective
u, is a matter of the highest urgency and of the most thrilling
actuality. All depends on that. Your happiness--the elusive prize
that you are all clutching for, my friends!--depends on that.
Strange that the newspapers, so enterprising and up-to-date as they
are, are not full of "How to live on a given income of time,"
instead of "How to live on a given income of money"! Money is far
commoner than time. When one reflects, one perceives that money is
just about the commonest thing there is. It encumbers the earth in
gross heaps.
If one can't contrive to live on a certain income of money, one
earns a little more--or steals it, or advertis for it. One
doesn't necessarily muddle one's life becau one can't quite manage
on a thousand pounds a year; one braces the muscles and makes it
guineas, and balances the budget. But if one cannot arrange that an
income of twenty-four hours a day shall exactly cover all proper
chine t中国情侣items of expenditure, one does muddle one's life definitely. The
supply of time, though gloriously regular, is cruelly restricted.
Which of us lives on twenty-four hours a day? And when I say
"lives," I do not mean exists, nor "muddles through." Which of us
is free from that uneasy feeling that the "great spending
departments" of his daily life are not managed as they ought to be?
Which of us is quite sure that his fine suit is not surmounted by a
shameful hat, or that in attending to the crockery he has forgotten
the quality of the food? Which of us is not saying to himlf--
which of us has not been saying to himlf all his life: "I shall
alter that when I have a little more time"?
We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had,
all the time there is. It is the realisation of this profound and
neglected truth (which, by the way, I have not discovered) that has
led me to the minute practical examination of daily time-
expenditure.
II
THE DESIRE TO EXCEED ONE'S PROGRAMME
"But," someone may remark, with the English disregard of everything
except the point, "what is he driving at with his twenty-four hours
a day? I have no difficulty in living on twenty-four hours a day. I
do all that I want to do, and still find time to go in for newspaper
competitions. Surely it is a simple affair, knowing that one has
only twenty-four hours a day, to content one's lf with twenty-four
hours a day!"
To you, my dear sir, I prent my excus and apologies. You are
precily the man that I have been wishing to meet for about forty
years. Will you kindly nd me your name and address, and state
your charge f
or telling me how you do it? Instead of me talking to
you, you ought to be talking to me. Plea come forward. That you
exist, I am convinced, and that I have not yet encountered you is my
loss. Meanwhile, until you appear, I will continue to chat with my
companions in distress--that innumerable band of souls who are
haunted, more or less painfully, by the feeling that the years slip
by, and slip by, and slip by, and that they have not yet been able
to get their lives into proper working order.
If we analy that feeling, we shall perceive it to be, primarily,
one of uneasiness, of expectation, of looking forward, of
aspiration. It is a source of constant discomfort, for it behaves
like a skeleton at the feast of all our enjoyments. We go to the
theatre and laugh; but between the acts it rais a skinny finger at
us. We rush violently for the last train, and while we are cooling
a long age on the platform waiting for the last train, it promenades
its bones up and down by our side and inquires: "O man, what hast
thou done with thy youth? What art thou doing with thine age?" You
may urge that this feeling of continuous looking forward, of
aspiration, is part of life itlf, and inparable from life
itlf. True!
But there are degrees. A man may desire to go to Mecca. His
conscience tells him that he ought to go to Mecca. He fares forth,
either by the aid of Cook's, or unassisted; he may probably never
reach Mecca; he may drown before he gets to Port Said; he may perish
ingloriously on the coast of the Red Sea; his desire may remain
eternally frustrate. Unfulfilled aspiration may always trouble him.
But he will not be tormented in the same way as the man who,
desiring to reach Mecca, and harried by the desire to reach Mecca,
never leaves Brixton.
It is something to have left Brixton. Most of us have not left
Brixton. We have not even taken a cab to Ludgate Circus and
inquired from Cook's the price of a conducted tour. And our excu
to ourlves is that there are only twenty-four hours in the day.
If we further analy our vague, uneasy aspiration, we shall, I
think, e that it springs from a fixed idea that we ought to do
something in addition to tho things which we are loyally and
morally obliged to do. We are obliged, by various codes written and
unwritten, to maintain ourlves and our families (if any) in health
and comfort, to pay our debts, to save, to increa our prosperity
by increasing our efficiency. A task sufficiently difficult! A
task which very few of us achieve! A task often beyond our skill!
yet, if we succeed in it, as we sometimes do, we are not satisfied;
the skeleton is still with us.
And even when we reali that the task is beyond our skill, that
our powers cannot cope with it, we feel that we should be less
discontented if we gave to our powers, already overtaxed, something
still further to do.
差拍And such is, indeed, the fact. The wish to accomplish something
outs
