How to Live on 24 Hours a Day | Page 5

a loss for any
other diversion. How much sleep do you think is daily obtained by the powerful healthy
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 themselves 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 course, does not apply to growing
youths.
Rise 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 servants." 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 reversed 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 infused. You can begin your day while drinking it.
These details may seem trivial to the foolish, but to the thoughtful they will not seem
trivial. The proper, wise balancing of one's whole life may depend upon the feasibility of
a cup of tea at an unusual hour.
A. B.
CONTENTS
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

HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY

I THE DAILY MIRACLE
"Yes, he's one of those 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 trousers! 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 criticised, at one time or another, in our superior way.
We 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 these articles
provoke a correspondence whose violence proves the interest they excite. Recently, in a
daily organ, a battle raged round the question whether a woman can exist nicely in the
country on L85 a year. I have seen an essay, "How to live on eight shillings a week." But
I have never seen an essay, "How to live on twenty-four hours a day." Yet it has been
said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. 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 yourself 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 purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the
unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious