{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2274/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2274","id":"gutenberg_2274","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274","summary":null,"tags":["Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923","Category: How To ...","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Conduct of life","Time management","Values"],"text":"Produced by Tony Adam.  HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHow to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day\n\n\nby\n\nArnold Bennett\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THIS EDITION\n\nThis preface, though placed at the beginning, as a preface must be,\nshould be read at the end of the book.\n\nI have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this small\nwork, and many reviews of it--some of them nearly as long as the book\nitself--have been printed.  But scarcely any of the comment has been\nadverse.  Some people have objected to a frivolity of tone; but as the\ntone is not, in my opinion, at all frivolous, this objection did not\nimpress me; and had no weightier reproach been put forward I might\nalmost have been persuaded that the volume was flawless!  A more\nserious stricture has, however, been offered--not in the press, but by\nsundry obviously sincere correspondents--and I must deal with it.  A\nreference to page 43 will show that I anticipated and feared this\ndisapprobation.  The sentence against which protests have been made is\nas follows:--\"In the majority of instances he [the typical man] does\nnot precisely feel a passion for his business; at best he does not\ndislike it.  He begins his business functions with some reluctance, as\nlate as he can, and he ends them with joy, as early as he can. And his\nengines, while he is engaged in his business, are seldom at their full\n'h.p.'\"\n\nI am assured, in accents of unmistakable sincerity, that there are many\nbusiness men--not merely those in high positions or with fine\nprospects, but modest subordinates with no hope of ever being much\nbetter off--who do enjoy their business functions, who do not shirk\nthem, who do not arrive at the office as late as possible and depart as\nearly as possible, who, in a word, put the whole of their force into\ntheir day's work and are genuinely fatigued at the end thereof.\n\nI am ready to believe it.  I do believe it.  I know it.  I always knew\nit.  Both in London and in the provinces it has been my lot to spend\nlong years in subordinate situations of business; and the fact did not\nescape me that a certain proportion of my peers showed what amounted to\nan honest passion for their duties, and that while engaged in those\nduties they were really _living_ to the fullest extent of which they\nwere capable.  But I remain convinced that these fortunate and happy\nindividuals (happier perhaps than they guessed) did not and do not\nconstitute a majority, or anything like a majority.  I remain convinced\nthat the majority of decent average conscientious men of business (men\nwith aspirations and ideals) do not as a rule go home of a night\ngenuinely tired.  I remain convinced that they put not as much but as\nlittle of themselves as they conscientiously can into the earning of a\nlivelihood, and that their vocation bores rather than interests them.\n\nNevertheless, I admit that the minority is of sufficient importance to\nmerit attention, and that I ought not to have ignored it so completely\nas I did do.  The whole difficulty of the hard-working minority was put\nin a single colloquial sentence by one of my correspondents.  He wrote:\n\"I am just as keen as anyone on doing something to 'exceed my\nprogramme,' but allow me to tell you that when I get home at six thirty\np.m. I am not anything like so fresh as you seem to imagine.\"\n\nNow I must point out that the case of the minority, who throw\nthemselves with passion and gusto into their daily business task, is\ninfinitely less deplorable than the case of the majority, who go\nhalf-heartedly and feebly through their official day.  The former are\nless in need of advice \"how to live.\"  At any rate during their\nofficial day of, say, eight hours they are really alive; their engines\nare giving the full indicated \"h.p.\"  The other eight working hours of\ntheir day may be badly organised, or even frittered away; but it is\nless disastrous to waste eight hours a day than sixteen hours a day; it\nis better to have lived a bit than never to have lived at all. The real\ntragedy is the tragedy of the man who is braced to effort neither in\nthe office nor out of it, and to this man this book is primarily\naddressed.  \"But,\" says the other and more fortunate man, \"although my\nordinary programme is bigger than his, I want to exceed my programme\ntoo!  I am living a bit; I want to live more. But I really can't do\nanother day's work on the top of my official day.\"\n\nThe fact is, I, the author, ought to have foreseen that I should appeal\nmost strongly to those who already had an interest in existence.  It is\nalways the man who has tasted life who demands more of it.  And it is\nalways the man who never gets out of bed who is the most difficult to\nrouse.\n\nWell, you of the minority, let us assume that the intensity of your\ndaily money-getting will not allow you to carry out quite all the\nsuggestions in the following pages.  Some of the suggestions may yet\nstand.  I admit that you may not be able to use the time spent on the\njourney home at night; but the suggestion for the journey to the office\nin the morning is as practicable for you as for anybody. And that\nweekly interval of forty hours, from Saturday to Monday, is yours just\nas much as the other man's, though a slight accumulation of fatigue may\nprevent you from employing the whole of your \"h.p.\" upon it.  There\nremains, then, the important portion of the three or more evenings a\nweek.  You tell me flatly that you are too tired to do anything outside\nyour programme at night.  In reply to which I tell you flatly that if\nyour ordinary day's work is thus exhausting, then the balance of your\nlife is wrong and must be adjusted.  A man's powers ought not to be\nmonopolised by his ordinary day's work. What, then, is to be done?\n\nThe obvious thing to do is to circumvent your ardour for your ordinary\nday's work by a ruse. Employ your engines in something beyond the\nprogramme before, and not after, you employ them on the programme\nitself.  Briefly, get up earlier in the morning.  You say you cannot.\nYou say it is impossible for you to go earlier to bed of a night--to do\nso would upset the entire household.  I do not think it is quite\nimpossible to go to bed earlier at night.  I think that if you persist\nin rising earlier, and the consequence is insufficiency of sleep, you\nwill soon find a way of going to bed earlier.  But my impression is\nthat the consequences of rising earlier will not be an insufficiency of\nsleep.  My impression, growing stronger every year, is that sleep is\npartly a matter of habit--and of slackness.  I am convinced that most\npeople sleep as long as they do because they are at a loss for any\nother diversion. How much sleep do you think is daily obtained by the\npowerful healthy man who daily rattles up your street in charge of\nCarter Patterson's van?  I have consulted a doctor on this point.  He\nis a doctor who for twenty-four years has had a large general practice\nin a large flourishing suburb of London, inhabited by exactly such\npeople as you and me.  He is a curt man, and his answer was curt:\n\n\"Most people sleep themselves stupid.\"\n\nHe went on to give his opinion that nine men out of ten would have\nbetter health and more fun out of life if they spent less time in bed.\n\nOther doctors have confirmed this judgment, which, of course, does not\napply to growing youths.\n\nRise an hour, an hour and a half, or even two hours earlier; and--if\nyou must--retire earlier when you can.  In the matter of exceeding\nprogrammes, you will accomplish as much in one morning hour as in two\nevening hours.  \"But,\" you say, \"I couldn't begin without some food,\nand servants.\"  Surely, my dear sir, in an age when an excellent\nspirit-lamp (including a saucepan) can be bought for less than a\nshilling, you are not going to allow your highest welfare to depend\nupon the precarious immediate co-operation of a fellow creature!\nInstruct the fellow creature, whoever she may be, at night.  Tell her\nto put a tray in a suitable position over night. On that tray two\nbiscuits, a cup and saucer, a box of matches and a spirit-lamp; on the\nlamp, the saucepan; on the saucepan, the lid--but turned the wrong way\nup; on the reversed lid, the small teapot, containing a minute quantity\nof tea leaves.  You will then have to strike a match--that is all.  In\nthree minutes the water boils, and you pour it into the teapot (which\nis already warm).  In three more minutes the tea is infused.  You can\nbegin your day while drinking it.  These details may seem trivial to\nthe foolish, but to the thoughtful they will not seem trivial.  The\nproper, wise balancing of one's whole life may depend upon the\nfeasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.\n\nA. B.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPREFACE\n\n     I  THE DAILY MIRACLE\n    II  THE DESIRE TO EXCEED ONE'S PROGRAMME\n   III  PRECAUTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING\n    IV  THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE\n     V  TENNIS AND THE IMMORTAL SOUL\n    VI  REMEMBER HUMAN NATURE\n   VII  CONTROLLING THE MIND\n  VIII  THE REFLECTIVE MOOD\n    IX  INTEREST IN THE ARTS\n     X  NOTHING IN LIFE IS HUMDRUM\n    XI  SERIOUS READING\n   XII  DANGERS TO AVOID\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE DAILY MIRACLE\n\n\"Yes, he's one of those men that don't know how to manage. Good\nsituation.  Regular income.  Quite enough for luxuries as well as\nneeds.  Not really extravagant.  And yet the fellow's always in\ndifficulties.  Somehow he gets nothing out of his money.  Excellent\nflat--half empty!  Always looks as if he'd had the brokers in.  New\nsuit--old hat!  Magnificent necktie--baggy trousers!  Asks you to\ndinner:  cut glass--bad mutton, or Turkish coffee--cracked cup!  He\ncan't understand it.  Explanation simply is that he fritters his income\naway.  Wish I had the half of it! I'd  show him--\"\n\nSo we have most of us criticised, at one time or another, in our\nsuperior way.\n\nWe are nearly all chancellors of the exchequer:  it is the pride of the\nmoment.  Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live on\nsuch-and-such a sum, and these articles provoke a correspondence whose\nviolence proves the interest they excite.  Recently, in a daily organ,\na battle raged round the question whether a woman can exist nicely in\nthe country on L85 a year.  I have seen an essay, \"How to live on eight\nshillings a week.\"  But I have never seen an essay, \"How to live on\ntwenty-four hours a day.\"  Yet it has been said that time is money.\nThat proverb understates the case.  Time is a great deal more than\nmoney.  If you have time you can obtain money--usually.  But though you\nhave the wealth of a cloak-room attendant at the Carlton Hotel, you\ncannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have, or the cat by the\nfire has.\n\n\nPhilosophers have explained space.  They have not explained time. It is\nthe inexplicable raw material of everything.  With it, all is possible;\nwithout it, nothing.  The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an\naffair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.  You wake up in the\nmorning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours\nof the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life!  It is\nyours.  It is the most precious of possessions.  A highly singular\ncommodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity\nitself!\n\nFor remark!  No one can take it from you.  It is unstealable.  And no\none receives either more or less than you receive.\n\nTalk about an ideal democracy!  In the realm of time there is no\naristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect.  Genius is\nnever rewarded by even an extra hour a day.  And there is no\npunishment.  Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you\nwill, and the supply will never be withheld from you.  No mysterious\npower will say:--\"This man is a fool, if not a knave.  He does not\ndeserve time; he shall be cut off at the meter.\" It is more certain\nthan consols, and payment of income is not affected by Sundays.\nMoreover, you cannot draw on the future.  Impossible to get into debt!\nYou can only waste the passing moment.  You cannot waste to-morrow; it\nis kept for you.  You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you.\n\nI said the affair was a miracle.  Is it not?\n\nYou have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time.  Out of it\nyou have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the\nevolution of your immortal soul.  Its right use, its most effective\nuse, is a matter of the highest urgency and of the most thrilling\nactuality.  All depends on that.  Your happiness--the elusive prize\nthat you are all clutching for, my friends!--depends on that. Strange\nthat the newspapers, so enterprising and up-to-date as they are, are\nnot full of \"How to live on a given income of time,\" instead of \"How to\nlive on a given income of money\"!  Money is far commoner than time.\nWhen one reflects, one perceives that money is just about the commonest\nthing there is.  It encumbers the earth in gross heaps.\n\nIf one can't contrive to live on a certain income of money, one earns a\nlittle more--or steals it, or advertises for it.  One doesn't\nnecessarily muddle one's life because one can't quite manage on a\nthousand pounds a year; one braces the muscles and makes it guineas,\nand balances the budget.  But if one cannot arrange that an income of\ntwenty-four hours a day shall exactly cover all proper items of\nexpenditure, one does muddle one's life definitely.  The supply of\ntime, though gloriously regular, is cruelly restricted.\n\n\nWhich of us lives on twenty-four hours a day?  And when I say \"lives,\"\nI do not mean exists, nor \"muddles through.\"  Which of us is free from\nthat uneasy feeling that the \"great spending departments\" of his daily\nlife are not managed as they ought to be? Which of us is quite sure\nthat his fine suit is not surmounted by a shameful hat, or that in\nattending to the crockery he has forgotten the quality of the food?\nWhich of us is not saying to himself--which of us has not been saying\nto himself all his life:  \"I shall alter that when I have a little more\ntime\"?\n\nWe never shall have any more time.  We have, and we have always had,\nall the time there is.  It is the realisation of this profound and\nneglected truth (which, by the way, I have not discovered) that has led\nme to the minute practical examination of daily time-expenditure.\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE DESIRE TO EXCEED ONE'S PROGRAMME\n\n\"But,\" someone may remark, with the English disregard of everything\nexcept the point, \"what is he driving at with his twenty-four hours a\nday? I have no difficulty in living on twenty-four hours a day.  I do\nall that I want to do, and still find time to go in for newspaper\ncompetitions.  Surely it is a simple affair, knowing that one has only\ntwenty-four hours a day, to content one's self with twenty-four hours a\nday!\"\n\nTo you, my dear sir, I present my excuses and apologies.  You are\nprecisely the man that I have been wishing to meet for about forty\nyears.  Will you kindly send me your name and address, and state your\ncharge for telling me how you do it?  Instead of me talking to you, you\nought to be talking to me. Please come forward.  That you exist, I am\nconvinced, and that I have not yet encountered you is my loss.\nMeanwhile, until you appear, I will continue to chat with my companions\nin distress--that innumerable band of souls who are haunted, more or\nless painfully, by the feeling that the years slip by, and slip by, and\nslip by, and that they have not yet been able to get their lives into\nproper working order.\n\nIf we analyse that feeling,  we shall perceive it to be, primarily, one\nof uneasiness, of expectation, of looking forward, of aspiration.  It\nis a source of constant discomfort, for it behaves like a skeleton at\nthe feast of all our enjoyments.  We go to the theatre and laugh; but\nbetween the acts it raises a skinny finger at us.  We rush violently\nfor the last train, and while we are cooling a long age on the platform\nwaiting for the last train, it promenades its bones up and down by our\nside and inquires:  \"O man, what hast thou done with thy youth?  What\nart thou doing with thine age?\"  You may urge that this feeling of\ncontinuous looking forward, of aspiration, is part of life itself, and\ninseparable from life itself.  True!\n\nBut there are degrees.  A man may desire to go to Mecca.  His\nconscience tells him that he ought to go to Mecca.  He fares forth,\neither by the aid of Cook's, or unassisted; he may probably never reach\nMecca; he may drown before he gets to Port Said; he may perish\ningloriously on the coast of the Red Sea; his desire may remain\neternally frustrate.  Unfulfilled aspiration may always trouble him.\nBut he will not be tormented in the same way as the man who, desiring\nto reach Mecca, and harried by the desire to reach Mecca, never leaves\nBrixton.\n\nIt is something to have left Brixton.  Most of us have not left\nBrixton.  We have not even taken a cab to Ludgate Circus and inquired\nfrom Cook's the price of a conducted tour.  And our excuse to ourselves\nis that there are only twenty-four hours in the day.\n\nIf we further analyse our vague, uneasy aspiration, we shall, I think,\nsee that it springs from a fixed idea that we ought to do something in\naddition to those things which we are loyally and morally obliged to\ndo.  We are obliged, by various codes written and unwritten, to\nmaintain ourselves and our families (if any) in health and comfort, to\npay our debts, to save, to increase our prosperity by increasing our\nefficiency.  A task sufficiently difficult!  A task which very few of\nus achieve!  A task often beyond our skill! Yet, if we succeed in it,\nas we sometimes do, we are not satisfied; the skeleton is still with us.\n\nAnd even when we realise that the task is beyond our skill, that our\npowers cannot cope with it, we feel that we should be less discontented\nif we gave to our powers, already overtaxed, something still further to\ndo.\n\nAnd such is, indeed, the fact.  The wish to accomplish something\noutside their formal programme is common to all men who in the course\nof evolution have risen past a certain level.\n\nUntil an effort is made to satisfy that wish, the sense of uneasy\nwaiting for something to start which has not started will remain to\ndisturb the peace of the soul. That wish has been called by many names.\nIt is one form of the universal desire for knowledge.  And it is so\nstrong that men whose whole lives have been given to the systematic\nacquirement of knowledge have been driven by it to overstep the limits\nof their programme in search of still more knowledge.  Even Herbert\nSpencer, in my opinion the greatest mind that ever lived, was often\nforced by it into agreeable little backwaters of inquiry.\n\nI imagine that in the majority of people who are conscious of the wish\nto live--that is to say, people who have intellectual curiosity--the\naspiration to exceed formal programmes takes a literary shape.  They\nwould like to embark on a course of reading. Decidedly the British\npeople are becoming more and more literary. But I would point out that\nliterature by no means comprises the whole field of knowledge, and that\nthe disturbing thirst to improve one's self--to increase one's\nknowledge--may well be slaked quite apart from literature.  With the\nvarious ways of slaking I shall deal later. Here I merely point out to\nthose who have no natural sympathy with literature that literature is\nnot the only well.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nPRECAUTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING\n\nNow that I have succeeded (if succeeded I have) in persuading you to\nadmit to yourself that you are constantly haunted by a suppressed\ndissatisfaction with your own arrangement of your daily life; and that\nthe primal cause of that inconvenient dissatisfaction is the feeling\nthat you are every day leaving undone something which you would like to\ndo, and which, indeed, you are always hoping to do when you have \"more\ntime\"; and now that I have drawn your attention to the glaring,\ndazzling truth that you never will have \"more time,\" since you already\nhave all the time there is--you expect me to let you into some\nwonderful secret by which you may at any rate approach the ideal of a\nperfect arrangement of the day, and by which, therefore, that haunting,\nunpleasant, daily disappointment of things left undone will be got rid\nof!\n\nI have found no such wonderful secret.  Nor do I expect to find it, nor\ndo I expect that anyone else will ever find it.  It is undiscovered.\nWhen you first began to gather my drift, perhaps there was a\nresurrection of hope in your breast.  Perhaps you said to yourself,\n\"This man will show me an easy, unfatiguing way of doing what I have so\nlong in vain wished to do.\"  Alas, no!  The fact is that there is no\neasy way, no royal road.  The path to Mecca is extremely hard and\nstony, and the worst of it is that you never quite get there after all.\n\nThe most important preliminary to the task of arranging one's life so\nthat one may live fully and comfortably within one's daily budget of\ntwenty-four hours is the calm realisation of the extreme difficulty of\nthe task, of the sacrifices and the endless effort which it demands.  I\ncannot too strongly insist on this.\n\nIf you imagine that you will be able to achieve your ideal by\ningeniously planning out a time-table with a pen on a piece of paper,\nyou had better give up hope at once.  If you are not prepared for\ndiscouragements and disillusions; if you will not be content with a\nsmall result for a big effort, then do not begin.  Lie down again and\nresume the uneasy doze which you call your existence.\n\nIt is very sad, is it not, very depressing and sombre?  And yet I think\nit is rather fine, too, this necessity for the tense bracing of the\nwill before anything worth doing can be done.  I rather like it myself.\nI feel it to be the chief thing that differentiates me from the cat by\nthe fire.\n\n\"Well,\" you say, \"assume that I am braced for the battle.  Assume that\nI have carefully weighed and comprehended your ponderous remarks; how\ndo I begin?\"  Dear sir, you simply begin.  There is no magic method of\nbeginning.  If a man standing on the edge of a swimming-bath and\nwanting to jump into the cold water should ask you, \"How do I begin to\njump?\" you would merely reply, \"Just jump. Take hold of your nerves,\nand jump.\"\n\nAs I have previously said, the chief beauty about the constant supply\nof time is that you cannot waste it in advance.  The next year, the\nnext day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as\nunspoilt, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in\nall your career.  Which fact is very gratifying and reassuring.  You\ncan turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose. Therefore no object\nis served in waiting till next week, or even until to-morrow.  You may\nfancy that the water will be warmer next week.  It won't.  It will be\ncolder.\n\nBut before you begin, let me murmur a few words of warning in your\nprivate ear.\n\nLet me principally warn you against your own ardour.  Ardour in\nwell-doing is a misleading and a treacherous thing.  It cries out\nloudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and\nmore; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers.\nIt isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels\nthe perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies,\nwithout even putting itself to the trouble of saying, \"I've had enough\nof this.\"\n\nBeware of undertaking too much at the start.  Be content with quite a\nlittle. Allow for accidents.  Allow for human nature, especially your\nown.\n\nA failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a\nloss of self-esteem and of self-confidence.  But just as nothing\nsucceeds like success, so nothing fails like failure.  Most people who\nare ruined are ruined by attempting too much.  Therefore, in setting\nout on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within\nthe narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost\nthe risk of an early failure.  I will not agree that, in this business\nat any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success.  I am\nall for the petty success.  A glorious failure leads to nothing; a\npetty success may lead to a success that is not petty.\n\nSo let us begin to examine the budget of the day's time. You say your\nday is already full to overflowing.  How?  You actually spend in\nearning your livelihood--how much?  Seven hours, on the average? And in\nactual sleep, seven?  I will add two hours, and be generous. And I will\ndefy you to account to me on the spur of the moment for the other eight\nhours.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLES\n\nIn order to come to grips at once with the question of time-expenditure\nin all its actuality, I must choose an individual case for examination.\nI can only deal with one case, and that case cannot be the average\ncase, because there is no such case as the average case, just as there\nis no such man as the average man. Every man and every man's case is\nspecial.\n\nBut if I take the case of a Londoner who works in an office, whose\noffice hours are from ten to six, and who spends fifty minutes morning\nand night in travelling between his house door and his office door, I\nshall have got as near to the average as facts permit.  There are men\nwho have to work longer for a living, but there are others who do not\nhave to work so long.\n\nFortunately the financial side of existence does not interest us here;\nfor our present purpose the clerk at a pound a week is exactly as well\noff as the millionaire in Carlton House-terrace.\n\nNow the great and profound mistake which my typical man makes in regard\nto his day is a mistake of general attitude, a mistake which vitiates\nand weakens two-thirds of his energies and interests.  In the majority\nof instances he does not precisely feel a passion for his business; at\nbest he does not dislike it.  He begins his business functions with\nreluctance, as late as he can, and he ends them with joy, as early as\nhe can.  And his engines while he is engaged in his business are seldom\nat their full \"h.p.\"  (I know that I shall be accused by angry readers\nof traducing the city worker; but I am pretty thoroughly acquainted\nwith the City, and I stick to what I say.)\n\nYet in spite of all this he persists in looking upon those hours from\nten to six as \"the day,\" to which the ten hours preceding them and the\nsix hours following them are nothing but a prologue and epilogue.  Such\nan attitude, unconscious though it be, of course kills his interest in\nthe odd sixteen hours, with the result that, even if he does not waste\nthem, he does not count them; he regards them simply as margin.\n\nThis general attitude is utterly illogical and unhealthy, since it\nformally gives the central prominence to a patch of time and a bunch of\nactivities which the man's one idea is to \"get through\" and have \"done\nwith.\"  If a man makes two-thirds of his existence subservient to\none-third, for which admittedly he has no absolutely feverish zest, how\ncan he hope to live fully and completely?  He cannot.\n\nIf my typical man wishes to live fully and completely he must, in his\nmind, arrange a day within a day.  And this inner day, a Chinese box in\na larger Chinese box, must begin at 6 p.m. and end at 10 a.m. It is a\nday of sixteen hours; and during all these sixteen hours he has nothing\nwhatever to do but cultivate his body and his soul and his fellow men.\nDuring those sixteen hours he is free; he is not a wage-earner; he is\nnot preoccupied with monetary cares; he is just as good as a man with a\nprivate income.  This must be his attitude. And his attitude is all\nimportant.  His success in life (much more important than the amount of\nestate upon what his executors will have to pay estate duty) depends on\nit.\n\nWhat?  You say that full energy given to those sixteen hours will\nlessen the value of the business eight?  Not so.  On the contrary, it\nwill assuredly increase the value of the business eight.  One of the\nchief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental\nfaculties are capable of a continuous hard activity; they do not tire\nlike an arm or a leg.  All they want is change--not rest, except in\nsleep.\n\nI shall now examine the typical man's current method of employing the\nsixteen hours that are entirely his, beginning with his uprising.  I\nwill merely indicate things which he does and which I think he ought\nnot to do, postponing my suggestions for \"planting\" the times which I\nshall have cleared--as a settler clears spaces in a forest.\n\nIn justice to him I must say that he wastes very little time before he\nleaves the house in the morning at 9.10.  In too many houses he gets up\nat nine, breakfasts between 9.7 and 9.9 1/2, and then bolts. But\nimmediately he bangs the front door his mental faculties, which are\ntireless, become idle.  He walks to the station in a condition of\nmental coma.  Arrived there, he usually has to wait for the train.  On\nhundreds of suburban stations every morning you see men calmly\nstrolling up and down platforms while railway companies unblushingly\nrob them of time, which is more than money.  Hundreds of thousands of\nhours are thus lost every day simply because my typical man thinks so\nlittle of time that it has never occurred to him to take quite easy\nprecautions against the risk of its loss.\n\nHe has a solid coin of time to spend every day--call it a sovereign. He\nmust get change for it, and in getting change he is content to lose\nheavily.\n\nSupposing that in selling him a ticket the company said, \"We will\nchange you a sovereign, but we shall charge you three halfpence for\ndoing so,\" what would my typical man exclaim?  Yet that is the\nequivalent of what the company does when it robs him of five minutes\ntwice a day.\n\nYou say I am dealing with minutiae.  I am.  And later on I will justify\nmyself.\n\nNow will you kindly buy your paper and step into the train?\n\n\n\nV\n\nTENNIS AND THE IMMORTAL SOUL\n\nYou get into the morning train with your newspaper, and you calmly and\nmajestically give yourself up to your newspaper.  You do not hurry.\nYou know you have at least half an hour of security in front of you.\nAs your glance lingers idly at the advertisements of shipping and of\nsongs on the outer pages, your air is the air of a leisured man,\nwealthy in time, of a man from some planet where there are a hundred\nand twenty-four hours a day instead of twenty-four.  I am an\nimpassioned reader of newspapers. I read five English and two French\ndailies, and the news-agents alone know how many weeklies, regularly.\nI am obliged to mention this personal fact lest I should be accused of\na prejudice against newspapers when I say that I object to the reading\nof newspapers in the morning train. Newspapers are produced with\nrapidity, to be read with rapidity. There is no place in my daily\nprogramme for newspapers.  I read them as I may in odd moments. But I\ndo read them.  The idea of devoting to them thirty or forty consecutive\nminutes of wonderful solitude (for nowhere can one more perfectly\nimmerse one's self in one's self than in a compartment full of silent,\nwithdrawn, smoking males) is to me repugnant.  I cannot possibly allow\nyou to scatter priceless pearls of time with such Oriental lavishness.\nYou are not the Shah of time. Let me respectfully remind you that you\nhave no more time than I have.  No newspaper reading in trains!  I have\nalready \"put by\" about three-quarters of an hour for use.\n\nNow you reach your office.  And I abandon you there till six o'clock.\nI am aware that you have nominally an hour (often in reality an hour\nand a half) in the midst of the day, less than half of which time is\ngiven to eating.  But I will leave you all that to spend as you choose.\nYou may read your newspapers then.\n\nI meet you again as you emerge from your office.  You are pale and\ntired. At any rate, your wife says you are pale, and you give her to\nunderstand that you are tired.  During the journey home you have been\ngradually working up the tired feeling.  The tired feeling hangs heavy\nover the mighty suburbs of London like a virtuous and melancholy cloud,\nparticularly in winter.  You don't eat immediately on your arrival\nhome. But in about an hour or so you feel as if you could sit up and\ntake a little nourishment.  And you do.  Then you smoke, seriously; you\nsee friends; you potter; you play cards; you flirt with a book; you\nnote that old age is creeping on; you take a stroll; you caress the\npiano.... By Jove! a quarter past eleven. You then devote quite forty\nminutes to thinking about going to bed; and it is conceivable that you\nare acquainted with a genuinely good whisky.  At last you go to bed,\nexhausted by the day's work.  Six hours, probably more, have gone since\nyou left the office--gone like a dream, gone like magic, unaccountably\ngone!\n\nThat is a fair sample case.  But you say:  \"It's all very well for you\nto talk. A man _is_ tired.  A man must see his friends.  He can't\nalways be on the stretch.\"  Just so.  But when you arrange to go to the\ntheatre (especially with a pretty woman) what happens? You rush to the\nsuburbs; you spare no toil to make yourself glorious in fine raiment;\nyou rush back to town in another train; you keep yourself on the\nstretch for four hours, if not five; you take her home; you take\nyourself home.  You don't spend three-quarters of an hour in \"thinking\nabout\" going to bed.  You go.  Friends and fatigue have equally been\nforgotten, and the evening has seemed so exquisitely long (or perhaps\ntoo short)!  And do you remember that time when you were persuaded to\nsing in the chorus of the amateur operatic society, and slaved two\nhours every other night for three months?  Can you deny that when you\nhave something definite to look forward to at eventide, something that\nis to employ all your energy--the thought of that something gives a\nglow and a more intense vitality to the whole day?\n\nWhat I suggest is that at six o'clock you look facts in the face and\nadmit that you are not tired (because you are not, you know), and that\nyou arrange your evening so that it is not cut in the middle by a meal.\nBy so doing you will have a clear expanse of at least three hours.  I\ndo not suggest that you should employ three hours every night of your\nlife in using up your mental energy. But I do suggest that you might,\nfor a commencement, employ an hour and a half every other evening in\nsome important and consecutive cultivation of the mind.  You will still\nbe left with three evenings for friends, bridge, tennis, domestic\nscenes, odd reading, pipes, gardening, pottering, and prize\ncompetitions.  You will still have the terrific wealth of forty-five\nhours between 2 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Monday.  If you persevere you\nwill soon want to pass four evenings, and perhaps five, in some\nsustained endeavour to be genuinely alive. And you will fall out of\nthat habit of muttering to yourself at 11.15 p.m., \"Time to be thinking\nabout going to bed.\"  The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes\nbefore he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not\nliving.\n\nBut remember, at the start, those ninety nocturnal minutes thrice a\nweek must be the most important minutes in the ten thousand and eighty.\nThey must be sacred, quite as sacred as a dramatic rehearsal or a\ntennis match. Instead of saying, \"Sorry I can't see you, old chap, but\nI have to run off to the tennis club,\" you must say, \"...but I have to\nwork.\"  This, I admit, is intensely difficult to say.  Tennis is so\nmuch more urgent than the immortal soul.\n\n\n\nVI\n\nREMEMBER HUMAN NATURE\n\nI have incidentally mentioned the vast expanse of forty-four hours\nbetween leaving business at 2 p.m. on Saturday and returning to\nbusiness at 10 a.m. on Monday.  And here I must touch on the point\nwhether the week should consist of six days or of seven.  For many\nyears--in fact, until I was approaching forty--my own week consisted of\nseven days.  I was constantly being informed by older and wiser people\nthat more work, more genuine living, could be got out of six days than\nout of seven.\n\nAnd it is certainly true that now, with one day in seven in which I\nfollow no programme and make no effort save what the caprice of the\nmoment dictates, I appreciate intensely the moral value of a weekly\nrest.  Nevertheless, had I my life to arrange over again, I would do\nagain as I have done.  Only those who have lived at the full stretch\nseven days a week for a long time can appreciate the full beauty of a\nregular recurring idleness.  Moreover, I am ageing.  And it is a\nquestion of age.  In cases of abounding youth and exceptional energy\nand desire for effort I should say unhesitatingly:  Keep going, day in,\nday out.\n\nBut in the average case I should say:  Confine your formal programme\n(super-programme, I mean) to six days a week.  If you find yourself\nwishing to extend it, extend it, but only in proportion to your wish;\nand count the time extra as a windfall, not as regular income, so that\nyou can return to a six-day programme without the sensation of being\npoorer, of being a backslider.\n\nLet us now see where we stand.  So far we have marked for saving out of\nthe waste of days, half an hour at least on six mornings a week, and\none hour and a half on three evenings a week.  Total, seven hours and a\nhalf a week.\n\nI propose to be content with that seven hours and a half for the\npresent.  \"What?\" you cry.  \"You pretend to show us how to live, and\nyou only deal with seven hours and a half out of a hundred and\nsixty-eight!  Are you going to perform a miracle with your seven hours\nand a half?\"  Well, not to mince the matter, I am--if you will kindly\nlet me!  That is to say, I am going to ask you to attempt an experience\nwhich, while perfectly natural and explicable, has all the air of a\nmiracle.  My contention is that the full use of those seven-and-a-half\nhours will quicken the whole life of the week, add zest to it, and\nincrease the interest which you feel in even the most banal\noccupations.  You practise physical exercises for a mere ten minutes\nmorning and evening, and yet you are not astonished when your physical\nhealth and strength are beneficially affected every hour of the day,\nand your whole physical outlook changed.  Why should you be astonished\nthat an average of over an hour a day given to the mind should\npermanently and completely enliven the whole activity of the mind?\n\nMore time might assuredly be given to the cultivation of one's self.\nAnd in proportion as the time was longer the results would be greater.\nBut I prefer to begin with what looks like a trifling effort.\n\nIt is not really a trifling effort, as those will discover who have yet\nto essay it.  To \"clear\" even seven hours and a half from the jungle is\npassably difficult.  For some sacrifice has to be made. One may have\nspent one's time badly, but one did spend it; one did do something with\nit, however ill-advised that something may have been.  To do something\nelse means a change of habits.\n\nAnd habits are the very dickens to change!  Further, any change, even a\nchange for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and\ndiscomforts.  If you imagine that you will be able to devote seven\nhours and a half a week to serious, continuous effort, and still live\nyour old life, you are mistaken.  I repeat that some sacrifice, and an\nimmense deal of volition, will be necessary.  And it is because I know\nthe difficulty, it is because I know the almost disastrous effect of\nfailure in such an enterprise, that I earnestly advise a very humble\nbeginning. You must safeguard your self-respect. Self-respect is at the\nroot of all purposefulness, and a failure in an enterprise deliberately\nplanned deals a desperate wound at one's self-respect.  Hence I iterate\nand reiterate: Start quietly, unostentatiously.\n\nWhen you have conscientiously given seven hours and a half a week to\nthe cultivation of your vitality for three months--then you may begin\nto sing louder and tell yourself what wondrous things you are capable\nof doing.\n\nBefore coming to the method of using the indicated hours, I have one\nfinal suggestion to make.  That is, as regards the evenings, to allow\nmuch more than an hour and a half in which to do the work of an hour\nand a half.  Remember the chance of accidents.  Remember human nature.\nAnd give yourself, say, from 9 to 11.30 for your task of ninety minutes.\n\n\n\nVII\n\nCONTROLLING THE MIND\n\nPeople say:  \"One can't help one's thoughts.\"  But one can.  The\ncontrol of the thinking machine is perfectly possible.  And since\nnothing whatever happens to us outside our own brain; since nothing\nhurts us or gives us pleasure except within the brain, the supreme\nimportance of being able to control what goes on in that mysterious\nbrain is patent.  This idea is one of the oldest platitudes, but it is\na platitude whose profound truth and urgency most people live and die\nwithout realising.  People complain of the lack of power to\nconcentrate, not witting that they may acquire the power, if they\nchoose.\n\nAnd without the power to concentrate--that is to say, without the power\nto dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience--true life is\nimpossible. Mind control is the first element of a full existence.\n\nHence, it seems to me, the first business of the day should be to put\nthe mind through its paces.  You look after your body, inside and out;\nyou run grave danger in hacking hairs off your skin; you employ a whole\narmy of individuals, from the milkman to the pig-killer, to enable you\nto bribe your stomach into decent behaviour. Why not devote a little\nattention to the far more delicate machinery of the mind, especially as\nyou will require no extraneous aid?  It is for this portion of the art\nand craft of living that I have reserved the time from the moment of\nquitting your door to the moment of arriving at your office.\n\n\"What?  I am to cultivate my mind in the street, on the platform, in\nthe train, and in the crowded street again?\"  Precisely.  Nothing\nsimpler! No tools required!  Not even a book.  Nevertheless, the affair\nis not easy.\n\nWhen you leave your house, concentrate your mind on a subject (no\nmatter what, to begin with).  You will not have gone ten yards before\nyour mind has skipped away under your very eyes and is larking round\nthe corner with another subject.\n\nBring it back by the scruff of the neck.  Ere you have reached the\nstation you will have brought it back about forty times.  Do not\ndespair.  Continue. Keep it up.  You will succeed.  You cannot by any\nchance fail if you persevere.  It is idle to pretend that your mind is\nincapable of concentration. Do you not remember that morning when you\nreceived a disquieting letter which demanded a very carefully-worded\nanswer?  How you kept your mind steadily on the subject of the answer,\nwithout a second's intermission, until you reached your office;\nwhereupon you instantly sat down and wrote the answer?  That was a case\nin which _you_ were roused by circumstances to such a degree of\nvitality that you were able to dominate your mind like a tyrant. You\nwould have no trifling.  You insisted that its work should be done, and\nits work was done.\n\nBy the regular practice of concentration (as to which there is no\nsecret--save the secret of perseverance) you can tyrannise over your\nmind (which is not the highest part of _you_) every hour of the day,\nand in no matter what place.  The exercise is a very convenient one.\nIf you got into your morning train with a pair of dumb-bells for your\nmuscles or an encyclopaedia in ten volumes for your learning, you would\nprobably excite remark.  But as you walk in the street, or sit in the\ncorner of the compartment behind a pipe, or \"strap-hang\" on the\nSubterranean, who is to know that you are engaged in the most important\nof daily acts?  What asinine boor can laugh at you?\n\nI do not care what you concentrate on, so long as you concentrate. It\nis the mere disciplining of the thinking machine that counts. But\nstill, you may as well kill two birds with one stone, and concentrate\non something useful.  I suggest--it is only a suggestion--a little\nchapter of Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus.\n\nDo not, I beg, shy at their names.  For myself, I know nothing more\n\"actual,\" more bursting with plain common-sense, applicable to the\ndaily life of plain persons like you and me (who hate airs, pose, and\nnonsense) than Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus.  Read a chapter--and so\nshort they are, the chapters!--in the evening and concentrate on it the\nnext morning.  You will see.\n\nYes, my friend, it is useless for you to try to disguise the fact. I\ncan hear your brain like a telephone at my ear.  You are saying to\nyourself:  \"This fellow was doing pretty well up to his seventh\nchapter.  He had begun to interest me faintly.  But what he says about\nthinking in trains, and concentration, and so on, is not for me.  It\nmay be well enough for some folks, but it isn't in my line.\"\n\nIt is for you, I passionately repeat; it is for you.  Indeed, you are\nthe very man I am aiming at.\n\nThrow away the suggestion, and you throw away the most precious\nsuggestion that was ever offered to you.  It is not my suggestion. It\nis the suggestion of the most sensible, practical, hard-headed men who\nhave walked the earth.  I only give it you at second-hand. Try it.  Get\nyour mind in hand.  And see how the process cures half the evils of\nlife--especially worry, that miserable, avoidable, shameful\ndisease--worry!\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE REFLECTIVE MOOD\n\nThe exercise of concentrating the mind (to which at least half an hour\na day should be given) is a mere preliminary, like scales on the piano.\nHaving acquired power over that most unruly member of one's complex\norganism, one has naturally to put it to the yoke. Useless to possess\nan obedient mind unless one profits to the furthest possible degree by\nits obedience.  A prolonged primary course of study is indicated.\n\nNow as to what this course of study should be there cannot be any\nquestion; there never has been any question.  All the sensible people\nof all ages are agreed upon it.  And it is not literature, nor is it\nany other art, nor is it history, nor is it any science. It is the\nstudy of one's self.  Man, know thyself.  These words are so hackneyed\nthat verily I blush to write them. Yet they must be written, for they\nneed to be written.  (I take back my blush, being ashamed of it.)  Man,\nknow thyself.  I say it out loud.  The phrase is one of those phrases\nwith which everyone is familiar, of which everyone acknowledges the\nvalue, and which only the most sagacious put into practice.  I don't\nknow why.  I am entirely convinced that what is more than anything else\nlacking in the life of the average well-intentioned man of to-day is\nthe reflective mood.\n\nWe do not reflect.  I mean that we do not reflect upon genuinely\nimportant things; upon the problem of our happiness, upon the main\ndirection in which we are going, upon what life is giving to us, upon\nthe share which reason has (or has not) in determining our actions, and\nupon the relation between our principles and our conduct.\n\nAnd yet you are in search of happiness, are you not?  Have you\ndiscovered it?\n\nThe chances are that you have not.  The chances are that you have\nalready come to believe that happiness is unattainable.  But men have\nattained it. And they have attained it by realising that happiness does\nnot spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from\nthe development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.\n\nI suppose that you will not have the audacity to deny this.  And if you\nadmit it, and still devote no part of your day to the deliberate\nconsideration of your reason, principles, and conduct, you admit also\nthat while striving for a certain thing you are regularly leaving\nundone the one act which is necessary to the attainment of that thing.\n\nNow, shall I blush, or will you?\n\nDo not fear that I mean to thrust certain principles upon your\nattention.  I care not (in this place) what your principles are. Your\nprinciples may induce you to believe in the righteousness of burglary.\nI don't mind.  All I urge is that a life in which conduct does not\nfairly well accord with principles is a silly life; and that conduct\ncan only be made to accord with principles by means of daily\nexamination, reflection, and resolution.  What leads to the permanent\nsorrowfulness of burglars is that their principles are contrary to\nburglary.  If they genuinely believed in the moral excellence of\nburglary, penal servitude would simply mean so many happy years for\nthem; all martyrs are happy, because their conduct and their principles\nagree.\n\nAs for reason (which makes conduct, and is not unconnected with the\nmaking of principles), it plays a far smaller part in our lives than we\nfancy.  We are supposed to be reasonable but we are much more\ninstinctive than reasonable. And the less we reflect, the less\nreasonable we shall be.  The next time you get cross with the waiter\nbecause your steak is over-cooked, ask reason to step into the\ncabinet-room of your mind, and consult her.  She will probably tell you\nthat the waiter did not cook the steak, and had no control over the\ncooking of the steak; and that even if he alone was to blame, you\naccomplished nothing good by getting cross; you merely lost your\ndignity, looked a fool in the eyes of sensible men, and soured the\nwaiter, while producing no effect whatever on the steak.\n\nThe result of this consultation with reason (for which she makes no\ncharge) will be that when once more your steak is over-cooked you will\ntreat the waiter as a fellow-creature, remain quite calm in a kindly\nspirit, and politely insist on having a fresh steak.  The gain will be\nobvious and solid.\n\nIn the formation or modification of principles, and the practice of\nconduct, much help can be derived from printed books (issued at\nsixpence each and upwards).  I mentioned in my last chapter Marcus\nAurelius and Epictetus. Certain even more widely known works will occur\nat once to the memory. I may also mention Pascal, La Bruyere, and\nEmerson.  For myself, you do not catch me travelling without my Marcus\nAurelius.  Yes, books are valuable.  But not reading of books will take\nthe place of a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has\nrecently done, and what one is about to do--of a steady looking at\none's self in the face (disconcerting though the sight may be).\n\nWhen shall this important business be accomplished?  The solitude of\nthe evening journey home appears to me to be suitable for it.  A\nreflective mood naturally follows the exertion of having earned the\nday's living. Of course if, instead of attending to an elementary and\nprofoundly important duty, you prefer to read the paper (which you\nmight just as well read while waiting for your dinner) I have nothing\nto say.  But attend to it at some time of the day you must. I now come\nto the evening hours.\n\n\n\nIX\n\nINTEREST IN THE ARTS\n\nMany people pursue a regular and uninterrupted course of idleness in\nthe evenings because they think that there is no alternative to\nidleness but the study of literature; and they do not happen to have a\ntaste for literature.  This is a great mistake.\n\nOf course it is impossible, or at any rate very difficult, properly to\nstudy anything whatever without the aid of printed books.  But if you\ndesire to understand the deeper depths of bridge or of boat-sailing you\nwould not be deterred by your lack of interest in literature from\nreading the best books on bridge or boat-sailing. We must, therefore,\ndistinguish between literature, and books treating of subjects not\nliterary.  I shall come to literature in due course.\n\nLet me now remark to those who have never read Meredith, and who are\ncapable of being unmoved by a discussion as to whether Mr. Stephen\nPhillips is or is not a true poet, that they are perfectly within their\nrights. It is not a crime not to love literature.  It is not a sign of\nimbecility.  The mandarins of literature will order out to instant\nexecution the unfortunate individual who does not comprehend, say, the\ninfluence of Wordsworth on Tennyson.  But that is only their impudence.\nWhere would they be, I wonder, if requested to explain the influences\nthat went to make Tschaikowsky's \"Pathetic Symphony\"?\n\nThere are enormous fields of knowledge quite outside literature which\nwill yield magnificent results to cultivators.  For example (since I\nhave just mentioned the most popular piece of high-class music in\nEngland to-day), I am reminded that the Promenade Concerts begin in\nAugust. You go to them.  You smoke your cigar or cigarette (and I\nregret to say that you strike your matches during the soft bars of the\n\"Lohengrin\" overture), and you enjoy the music.  But you say you cannot\nplay the piano or the fiddle, or even the banjo; that you know nothing\nof music.\n\nWhat does that matter?  That you have a genuine taste for music is\nproved by the fact that, in order to fill his hall with you and your\npeers, the conductor is obliged to provide programmes from which bad\nmusic is almost entirely excluded (a change from the old Covent Garden\ndays!).\n\nNow surely your inability to perform \"The Maiden's Prayer\" on a piano\nneed not prevent you from making yourself familiar with the\nconstruction of the orchestra to which you listen a couple of nights a\nweek during a couple of months!  As things are, you probably think of\nthe orchestra as a heterogeneous mass of instruments producing a\nconfused agreeable mass of sound.  You do not listen for details\nbecause you have never trained your ears to listen to details.\n\nIf you were asked to name the instruments which play the great theme at\nthe beginning of the C minor symphony you could not name them for your\nlife's sake.  Yet you admire the C minor symphony.  It has thrilled\nyou.  It will thrill you again.  You have even talked about it, in an\nexpansive mood, to that lady--you know whom I mean.  And all you can\npositively state about the C minor symphony is that Beethoven composed\nit and that it is a \"jolly fine thing.\"\n\nNow, if you have read, say, Mr. Krehbiel's \"How to Listen to Music\"\n(which can be got at any bookseller's for less than the price of a\nstall at the Alhambra, and which contains photographs of all the\norchestral instruments and plans of the arrangement of orchestras) you\nwould next go to a promenade concert with an astonishing\nintensification of interest in it.  Instead of a confused mass, the\norchestra would appear to you as what it is--a marvellously balanced\norganism whose various groups of members each have a different and an\nindispensable function.  You would spy out the instruments, and listen\nfor their respective sounds.  You would know the gulf that separates a\nFrench horn from an English horn, and you would perceive why a player\nof the hautboy gets higher wages than a fiddler, though the fiddle is\nthe more difficult instrument.  You would _live_ at a promenade\nconcert, whereas previously you had merely existed there in a state of\nbeatific coma, like a baby gazing at a bright object.\n\nThe foundations of a genuine, systematic knowledge of music might be\nlaid. You might specialise your inquiries either on a particular form\nof music (such as the symphony), or on the works of a particular\ncomposer.  At the end of a year of forty-eight weeks of three brief\nevenings each, combined with a study of programmes and attendances at\nconcerts chosen out of your increasing knowledge, you would really know\nsomething about music, even though you were as far off as ever from\njangling \"The Maiden's Prayer\" on the piano.\n\n\"But I hate music!\" you say.  My dear sir, I respect you.\n\nWhat applies to music applies to the other arts.  I might mention Mr.\nClermont Witt's \"How to Look at Pictures,\" or Mr. Russell Sturgis's\n\"How to Judge Architecture,\" as beginnings (merely beginnings) of\nsystematic vitalising knowledge in other arts, the materials for whose\nstudy abound in London.\n\n\"I hate all the arts!\" you say.  My dear sir, I respect you more and\nmore.\n\nI will deal with your case next, before coming to literature.\n\n\n\nX\n\nNOTHING IN LIFE IS HUMDRUM\n\nArt is a great thing.  But it is not the greatest.  The most important\nof all perceptions is the continual perception of cause and effect--in\nother words, the perception of the continuous development of the\nuniverse--in still other words, the perception of the course of\nevolution.  When one has thoroughly got imbued into one's head the\nleading truth that nothing happens without a cause, one grows not only\nlarge-minded, but large-hearted.\n\nIt is hard to have one's watch stolen, but one reflects that the thief\nof the watch became a thief from causes of heredity and environment\nwhich are as interesting as they are scientifically comprehensible; and\none buys another watch, if not with joy, at any rate with a philosophy\nthat makes bitterness impossible.  One loses, in the study of cause and\neffect, that absurd air which so many people have of being always\nshocked and pained by the curiousness of life.  Such people live amid\nhuman nature as if human nature were a foreign country full of awful\nforeign customs. But, having reached maturity, one ought surely to be\nashamed of being a stranger in a strange land!\n\nThe study of cause and effect, while it lessens the painfulness of\nlife, adds to life's picturesqueness.  The man to whom evolution is but\na name looks at the sea as a grandiose, monotonous spectacle, which he\ncan witness in August for three shillings third-class return.  The man\nwho is imbued with the idea of development, of continuous cause and\neffect, perceives in the sea an element which in the\nday-before-yesterday of geology was vapour, which yesterday was\nboiling, and which to-morrow will inevitably be ice.\n\nHe perceives that a liquid is merely something on its way to be solid,\nand he is penetrated by a sense of the tremendous, changeful\npicturesqueness of life.  Nothing will afford a more durable\nsatisfaction than the constantly cultivated appreciation of this. It is\nthe end of all science.\n\nCause and effect are to be found everywhere.  Rents went up in\nShepherd's Bush.  It was painful and shocking that rents should go up\nin Shepherd's Bush.  But to a certain point we are all scientific\nstudents of cause and effect, and there was not a clerk lunching at a\nLyons Restaurant who did not scientifically put two and two together\nand see in the (once) Two-penny Tube the cause of an excessive demand\nfor wigwams in Shepherd's Bush, and in the excessive demand for wigwams\nthe cause of the increase in the price of wigwams.\n\n\"Simple!\" you say, disdainfully.  Everything--the whole complex\nmovement of the universe--is as simple as that--when you can\nsufficiently put two and two together.  And, my dear sir, perhaps you\nhappen to be an estate agent's clerk, and you hate the arts, and you\nwant to foster your immortal soul, and you can't be interested in your\nbusiness because it's so humdrum.\n\nNothing is humdrum.\n\nThe tremendous, changeful picturesqueness of life is marvellously shown\nin an estate agent's office.  What!  There was a block of traffic in\nOxford Street; to avoid the block people actually began to travel under\nthe cellars and drains, and the result was a rise of rents in\nShepherd's Bush!  And you say that isn't picturesque! Suppose you were\nto study, in this spirit, the property question in London for an hour\nand a half every other evening. Would it not give zest to your\nbusiness, and transform your whole life?\n\nYou would arrive at more difficult problems.  And you would be able to\ntell us why, as the natural result of cause and effect, the longest\nstraight street in London is about a yard and a half in length, while\nthe longest absolutely straight street in Paris extends for miles.  I\nthink you will admit that in an estate agent's clerk I have not chosen\nan example that specially favours my theories.\n\nYou are a bank clerk, and you have not read that breathless romance\n(disguised as a scientific study), Walter Bagehot's \"Lombard Street\"?\nAh, my dear sir, if you had begun with that, and followed it up for\nninety minutes every other evening, how enthralling your business would\nbe to you, and how much more clearly you would understand human nature.\n\nYou are \"penned in town,\" but you love excursions to the country and\nthe observation of wild life--certainly a heart-enlarging diversion.\nWhy don't you walk out of your house door, in your slippers, to the\nnearest gas lamp of a night with a butterfly net, and observe the wild\nlife of common and rare moths that is beating about it, and co-ordinate\nthe knowledge thus obtained and build a superstructure on it, and at\nlast get to know something about something?\n\nYou need not be devoted to the arts, not to literature, in order to\nlive fully.\n\nThe whole field of daily habit and scene is waiting to satisfy that\ncuriosity which means life, and the satisfaction of which means an\nunderstanding heart.\n\nI promised to deal with your case, O man who hates art and literature,\nand I have dealt with it.  I now come to the case of the person,\nhappily very common, who does \"like reading.\"\n\n\n\nXI\n\nSERIOUS READING\n\nNovels are excluded from \"serious reading,\" so that the man who, bent\non self-improvement, has been deciding to devote ninety minutes three\ntimes a week to a complete study of the works of Charles Dickens will\nbe well advised to alter his plans.  The reason is not that novels are\nnot serious--some of the great literature of the world is in the form\nof prose fiction--the reason is that bad novels ought not to be read,\nand that good novels never demand any appreciable mental application on\nthe part of the reader. It is only the bad parts of Meredith's novels\nthat are difficult.  A good novel rushes you forward like a skiff down\na stream, and you arrive at the end, perhaps breathless, but\nunexhausted.  The best novels involve the least strain.  Now in the\ncultivation of the mind one of the most important factors is precisely\nthe feeling of strain, of difficulty, of a task which one part of you\nis anxious to achieve and another part of you is anxious to shirk; and\nthat feeling cannot be got in facing a novel.  You do not set your\nteeth in order to read \"Anna Karenina.\"  Therefore, though you should\nread novels, you should not read them in those ninety minutes.\n\nImaginative poetry produces a far greater mental strain than novels. It\nproduces probably the severest strain of any form of literature. It is\nthe highest form of literature.  It yields the highest form of\npleasure, and teaches the highest form of wisdom.  In a word, there is\nnothing to compare with it.  I say this with sad consciousness of the\nfact that the majority of people do not read poetry.\n\nI am persuaded that many excellent persons, if they were confronted\nwith the alternatives of reading \"Paradise Lost\" and going round\nTrafalgar Square at noonday on their knees in sack-cloth, would choose\nthe ordeal of public ridicule.  Still, I will never cease advising my\nfriends and enemies to read poetry before anything.\n\nIf poetry is what is called \"a sealed book\" to you, begin by reading\nHazlitt's famous essay on the nature of \"poetry in general.\"  It is the\nbest thing of its kind in English, and no one who has read it can\npossibly be under the misapprehension that poetry is a mediaeval\ntorture, or a mad elephant, or a gun that will go off by itself and\nkill at forty paces. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the mental\nstate of the man who, after reading Hazlitt's essay, is not urgently\ndesirous of reading some poetry before his next meal.  If the essay so\ninspires you I would suggest that you make a commencement with purely\nnarrative poetry.\n\nThere is an infinitely finer English novel, written by a woman, than\nanything by George Eliot or the Brontes, or even Jane Austen, which\nperhaps you have not read.  Its title is \"Aurora Leigh,\" and its author\nE.B. Browning.  It happens to be written in verse, and to contain a\nconsiderable amount of genuinely fine poetry.  Decide to read that book\nthrough, even if you die for it.  Forget that it is fine poetry. Read\nit simply for the story and the social ideas.  And when you have done,\nask yourself honestly whether you still dislike poetry. I have known\nmore than one person to whom \"Aurora Leigh\" has been the means of\nproving that in assuming they hated poetry they were entirely mistaken.\n\nOf course, if, after Hazlitt, and such an experiment made in the light\nof Hazlitt, you are finally assured that there is something in you\nwhich is antagonistic to poetry, you must be content with history or\nphilosophy. I shall regret it, yet not inconsolably. \"The Decline and\nFall\" is not to be named in the same day with \"Paradise Lost,\" but it\nis a vastly pretty thing; and Herbert Spencer's \"First Principles\"\nsimply laughs at the claims of poetry and refuses to be accepted as\naught but the most majestic product of any human mind.  I do not\nsuggest that either of these works is suitable for a tyro in mental\nstrains.  But I see no reason why any man of average intelligence\nshould not, after a year of continuous reading, be fit to assault the\nsupreme masterpieces of history or philosophy.  The great convenience\nof masterpieces is that they are so astonishingly lucid.\n\nI suggest no particular work as a start.  The attempt would be futile\nin the space of my command.  But I have two general suggestions of a\ncertain importance.  The first is to define the direction and scope of\nyour efforts. Choose a limited period, or a limited subject, or a\nsingle author.  Say to yourself:  \"I will know something about the\nFrench Revolution, or the rise of railways, or the works of John\nKeats.\"  And during a given period, to be settled beforehand, confine\nyourself to your choice.  There is much pleasure to be derived from\nbeing a specialist.\n\nThe second suggestion is to think as well as to read.  I know people\nwho read and read, and for all the good it does them they might just as\nwell cut bread-and-butter.  They take to reading as better men take to\ndrink. They fly through the shires of literature on a motor-car, their\nsole object being motion.  They will tell you how many books they have\nread in a year.\n\nUnless you give at least forty-five minutes to careful, fatiguing\nreflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading,\nyour ninety minutes of a night are chiefly wasted.  This means that\nyour pace will be slow.\n\nNever mind.\n\nForget the goal; think only of the surrounding country; and after a\nperiod, perhaps when you least expect it, you will suddenly find\nyourself in a lovely town on a hill.\n\n\n\nXII\n\nDANGERS TO AVOID\n\nI cannot terminate these hints, often, I fear, too didactic and abrupt,\nupon the full use of one's time to the great end of living (as\ndistinguished from vegetating) without briefly referring to certain\ndangers which lie in wait for the sincere aspirant towards life.  The\nfirst is the terrible danger of becoming that most odious and least\nsupportable of persons--a prig. Now a prig is a pert fellow who gives\nhimself airs of superior wisdom. A prig is a pompous fool who has gone\nout for a ceremonial walk, and without knowing it has lost an important\npart of his attire, namely, his sense of humour.  A prig is a tedious\nindividual who, having made a discovery, is so impressed by his\ndiscovery that he is capable of being gravely displeased because the\nentire world is not also impressed by it. Unconsciously to become a\nprig is an easy and a fatal thing.\n\nHence, when one sets forth on the enterprise of using all one's time,\nit is just as well to remember that one's own time, and not other\npeople's time, is the material with which one has to deal; that the\nearth rolled on pretty comfortably before one began to balance a budget\nof the hours, and that it will continue to roll on pretty comfortably\nwhether or not one succeeds in one's new role of chancellor of the\nexchequer of time.  It is as well not to chatter too much about what\none is doing, and not to betray a too-pained sadness at the spectacle\nof a whole world deliberately wasting so many hours out of every day,\nand therefore never really living.  It will be found, ultimately, that\nin taking care of one's self one has quite all one can do.\n\nAnother danger is the danger of being tied to a programme like a slave\nto a chariot.  One's programme must not be allowed to run away with\none. It must be respected, but it must not be worshipped as a fetish.\nA programme of daily employ is not a religion.\n\nThis seems obvious.  Yet I know men whose lives are a burden to\nthemselves and a distressing burden to their relatives and friends\nsimply because they have failed to appreciate the obvious.  \"Oh, no,\" I\nhave heard the martyred wife exclaim, \"Arthur always takes the dog out\nfor exercise at eight o'clock and he always begins to read at a quarter\nto nine.  So it's quite out of the question that we should...\" etc.,\netc.  And the note of absolute finality in that plaintive voice reveals\nthe unsuspected and ridiculous tragedy of a career.\n\nOn the other hand, a programme is a programme.  And unless it is\ntreated with deference it ceases to be anything but a poor joke.  To\ntreat one's programme with exactly the right amount of deference, to\nlive with not too much and not too little elasticity, is scarcely the\nsimple affair it may appear to the inexperienced.\n\nAnd still another danger is the danger of developing a policy of rush,\nof being gradually more and more obsessed by what one has to do next.\nIn this way one may come to exist as in a prison, and one's life may\ncease to be one's own.  One may take the dog out for a walk at eight\no'clock, and meditate the whole time on the fact that one must begin to\nread at a quarter to nine, and that one must not be late.\n\nAnd the occasional deliberate breaking of one's programme will not help\nto mend matters.  The evil springs not from persisting without\nelasticity in what one has attempted, but from originally attempting\ntoo much, from filling one's programme till it runs over.  The only\ncure is to reconstitute the programme, and to attempt less.\n\nBut the appetite for knowledge grows by what it feeds on, and there are\nmen who come to like a constant breathless hurry of endeavour. Of them\nit may be said that a constant breathless hurry is better than an\neternal doze.\n\nIn any case, if the programme exhibits a tendency to be oppressive, and\nyet one wishes not to modify it, an excellent palliative is to pass\nwith exaggerated deliberation from one portion of it to another; for\nexample, to spend five minutes in perfect mental quiescence between\nchaining up the St. Bernard and opening the book; in other words, to\nwaste five minutes with the entire consciousness of wasting them.\n\nThe last, and chiefest danger which I would indicate, is one to which I\nhave already referred--the risk of a failure at the commencement of the\nenterprise.\n\nI must insist on it.\n\nA failure at the commencement may easily kill outright the newborn\nimpulse towards a complete vitality, and therefore every precaution\nshould be observed to avoid it.  The impulse must not be over-taxed.\nLet the pace of the first lap be even absurdly slow, but let it be as\nregular as possible.\n\nAnd, having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all\ncosts of tedium and distaste.  The gain in self-confidence of having\naccomplished a tiresome labour is immense.\n\nFinally, in choosing the first occupations of those evening hours, be\nguided by nothing whatever but your taste and natural inclination.\n\nIt is a fine thing to be a walking encyclopaedia of philosophy, but if\nyou happen to have no liking for philosophy, and to have a like for the\nnatural history of street-cries, much better leave philosophy alone,\nand take to street-cries.","title":"How to Live on 24 Hours a Day","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":12851}