The Aristotelian philosopher has well expressed its value by saying,
“Nothing is more precious than time; and those who misspend it are the
greatest of all prodigals.”
Again:
The time of life is short:
To spend that shortness basely, were too long
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
Fuller has this quaint instruction upon our present topic: “Lay down
such rules to thyself, of observing stated hours for study and business,
as no man shall be able to persuade thee to recede from. For when thy
resolutions are once known, as no man of ingenuity will disturb thee, so
thou wilt find this method will become not only more practicable, but of
singular benefit in abundance of things.
“He that loseth his morning studies, gives an ill precedent to the
afternoon, and makes such a hole in the beginning of the day, that all
the winged hours will be in danger of flying out thereat: think how much
work is behind; how slow thou hast wrought in thy time that is past; and
what a reckoning thou shouldst make, if thy Master should call thee this
day to thine account.
“There is no man so miserable as he that is at a loss how to spend his
time. He is restless in his thoughts, unsteady in his counsels,
dissatisfied with the present, solicitous for the future.
“Be always employed; thou wilt never be better pleased than when thou
hast something to do. For business, by its motion, brings heat and life
to the spirits; but idleness corrupts them like standing water.
“Make use of time, if thou valuest eternity. Yesterday cannot be
recalled; to-morrow cannot be assured; to-day only is thine, which if
thou procrastinatest, thou losest; which loss is lost for ever.”
Dr. South, in one of his nervous Discourses, speaking of the uncertainty
of the present, says: “The sun shines in his full brightness but the
very moment before he passes under a cloud. Who knows what a day, what
an hour may bring forth? He who builds upon the present, builds upon the
narrow compass of a point; and where the foundation is so narrow, the
superstructure cannot be high and strong too.”
Sir William Jones, the profound scholar, of whom it was said that if he
were left naked and friendless on Salisbury-plain he would nevertheless
find the road to fame and riches, left among his manuscripts the
following lines on the management of his time, which he had written in
India, on a small piece of paper:
_Sir Edward Coke:_
Six hours in sleep, in law’s great study six;
Four spend in prayer—the rest on nature fix.
_Rather:_
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumbers seven;
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.
Dr. Johnson has moralised on Money and Time as “the heaviest burdens of
life;” adding, “the unhappiest of mortals are those who have more of
either than they know how to use. To set himself free from these
incumbrances, one hurries to Newmarket; another travels over Europe; one
pulls down his house, and calls architects about him; another buys a
seat in the country, and follows his hounds over hedges and through
rivers; one makes collections of shells; and another searches the world
for tulips and carnations.”
Elsewhere Johnson has these pertinent remarks: “Among those who have
contributed to the advancement of learning, many have risen to eminence
in opposition to all the obstacles which external circumstances could
place in their way,—amidst the tumults of business, the distresses of
poverty, or the dissipation of a wandering and unsettled state. A great
part of the life of Erasmus was one continued peregrination: ill
supplied with the gifts of fortune, and led from city to city and from
kingdom to kingdom by the hopes of patrons and preferment, hopes which
always flattered and always deceived him, he yet found means, by
unshaken constancy and a vigilant improvement of those hours which in
the midst of the most restless activity will remain unengaged, to write
more than another in the same condition could have hoped to read.
Compelled by want to attendance and solicitation, and so much versed in
common life that he has transmitted to us the most perfect delineation
of the manners of his age, he joined to his knowledge of the world such
application to books, that he will stand for ever in the first rank of
literary heroes. Now, this proficiency he sufficiently discovers, by
informing us that the _Praise of Folly_, one of his most celebrated
performances, was composed by him on the road to Italy, lest the hours
which he was obliged to spend on horseback should be tattled away,
without regard to literature.”
These are two memorable instances of the employment of minute portions
of time. We are told of Queen Elizabeth, that, except when engaged by
public or domestic affairs, and the exercises necessary for the
preservation of her health and spirits, she was always employed in
either reading or writing, in translating from other authors, or in
compositions of her own; and that, notwithstanding she spent much of her
time in reading the best writings of her own and former ages, yet she by
no means neglected that best of books, the Bible; for proof of which,
take the Queen’s own words: “I walk many times in the pleasant fields of
the Holy Scriptures, where I pluck up the godlisome herbs of sentences
by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up
at length in the high seat of memory by gathering them together; that
so, having tasted their sweetness, I may the less perceive the
bitterness of life.” Her piety and great good sense were undeniable.
The Chancellor of France, D’Aguesseau, finding that his wife always kept
him waiting a quarter of an hour after the dinner-bell had rung,
resolved to devote the time to writing a book on jurisprudence; and
putting the subject in execution, in course of time produced a work in
four quarto volumes. His literary tastes greatly distinguished him from
the mass of mere lawyers.
He whose mind the world wholly occupies imagines that no time can be
spared for divine duties. But many circumstances in the lives of good
men inform him that he is mistaken. The wise statesman, the sound
lawyer, the eminent merchant, the skilful physician, the most profound
mathematician, astronomer, or general student, will rise up in judgment
against the man who endeavours to excuse the observance of his religious
duties under the plea of learned or professional employment. Addison,
Hale, Thornton, Boerhaave, Bacon, Boyle, Newton, Locke, and many others,
prove that while the most important of worldly studies and occupations
employed their outward attention, _God rested at their hearts_. The
Ethiopian treasurer read Isaiah in his chariot, and Isaac meditated in
the fields. The friends of the good Hooker, when they went to visit him
at his parsonage, found him with a book in his hand, tending his own
sheep. In short, the true Christian will neither want place nor
opportunity for devotion, nor for the cultivation of those useful and
general talents which may contribute to the benefit or happiness of man.
Lord Woodhouselee, in his _Life of Lord Kames_, has well remarked, that
the professional occupations of the best-employed lawyer or the most
distinguished judge cannot fill up every interval of his time. The
useful respite of vacation, the hours of sickness, the surcease of
employment from the infirmities of age,—all necessarily induce seasons
of languor, against which a wise man would do well to provide a store in
reserve, and an antidote and cordial to cheer and support his spirits.
In this light the pursuits of science and literature afford an unbounded
field and endless variety of useful occupations; and even in the latest
hours of life the reflection on the time thus spent, and the
anticipation of an honourable memorial in after ages, are sources of
consolation of which every ingenuous mind must fully feel the value. How
melancholy was the reflection uttered on his deathbed by one of the
ablest lawyers and judges of the last age, but whose mental stores were
wholly limited to the ideas connected with his profession, “_My life has
been a chaos of nothing!_”
Sir Matthew Hale, one of the most upright judges that ever sat upon the
English bench, was of a benevolent and devout, as well as righteous
disposition; and in addition to his great legal works, found time to
write several volumes on natural philosophy and divinity. His
_Contemplations Moral and Divine_, written two centuries since, retain
their popularity to this day. Bishop Burnet, his biographer, tells us
that “his whole life was nothing else but a continual course of labour
and industry; and when he could borrow any time from the public service,
it was wholly employed either in philosophical or divine meditation.”
... “He that considers the active part of his life, and with what
unwearied diligence and application of mind he despatched all men’s
business that came under his care, will wonder how he could find time
for contemplation; he that considers, again, the various studies he
passed through, and the many collections and observations he made, may
as justly wonder how he could find any time for action. But no man can
wonder at the exemplary piety and innocence of such a life so spent as
this was, wherein, as he was careful to avoid every evil word, so it is
manifest _he never spent an idle day_.”
At every turn we are defeated through want of due regard to this
preciousness of time. “In early life we lay long plans of conduct. After
a considerable interval, we find most of our plans unexecuted; we then
begin to reflect that if they _are_ to be accomplished, a far smaller
portion of our time than we had originally allotted to them can be
employed in their execution, and, what is perhaps more fatal to our
schemes, that portion is uncertain. An awful thought for those who have
in their possession many of the chief blessings of life, and are
approaching, by a rapid progress, that mortal bourn from whence no
traveller returns.”[24]
How much of our time would be saved by the cultivation of the habit of
being content to be ignorant of certain subjects! Nothing can be more
beneficial to the mind than this habit; since it has thereby a more free
and open access to matters of the highest importance.
How much of our time is wasted in paying visits of insincerity! Boileau
being one day visited by an indolent person of rank, who reproached him
with not having returned his former call; “You and I,” replied the
satirist, “are upon unequal terms: I lose my time when I pay you a
visit; you only get rid of yours when you pay me one.”
One of the most familiar methods of taking note of time is by what are
usually termed family parties. When these are given on public holidays,
the effect is doubtless beneficial. Southey has well remarked:
“Festivals, when duly observed, attach men to the civil and religious
institutions of their country: it is an evil, therefore, when they fall
into disuse.” They do more,—in reminding us of the fewer anniversaries
we have to witness.
Boyle has these wholesome reflections upon _profuse talkers_: he tells
us “that easiness of admitting all Kind of Company, provided men have
boldness enough to intrude into ours, is one of the uneasiest Hardships
(not to say Martyrdoms) to which Custom has expos’d us, and does really
do more Mischief than most Men take notice of; since it does not only
keep impertinent Fools in countenance, but encourages them to be very
troublesome to Wise Men. The World is pester’d with a certain sort of
Praters, who make up in Loudness what their Discourses want in Sense;
and because Men are so easie natur’d as to allow the hearing to their
Impertinencies, they presently presume that the things they speak are
none; and most Men are so little able to discern in Discourse betwixt
Confidence and Wit, that to any that will but talk loud enough they will
be sure to afford answers. And (which is worse) this readiness to hazard
our Patience, and certainly lose our Time, and thereby incourage others
to multiply idle words, of which the Scripture seems to speak
threateningly, is made by Custom an Expression, if not a Duty, of
Civility; and so even a Virtue is made accessory to a Fault.
“For my part, though I think these Talkative people worse publick
Grievances than many of those for whose prevention or redress
Parliaments are wont to be assembled and Laws to be enacted; and though
I think their Robbing us of our time a much worse Mischief than those
petty Thefts for which Judges condemn Men, as a little Money is a less
valuable good than that precious Time, which no sum of it can either
purchase or redeem; yet I confess I think that our great Lords and
Ladies, that can admit this sort of Company, deserve it: For if such
Persons have but minds in any measure suited to their Qualities, they
may safely, by their Discountenance, banish such pitiful Creatures, and
secure their Quiet, not only without injuring the Reputation of their
Civility, but by advancing that of their Judgment.”
Sir John Harrington, the epigrammatic poet in the reign of Elizabeth,
and a dangler at her court, appears, by the following confession, from
his _Breefe Notes and Remembrances_, to have been a disappointed man: “I
have spente my time, my fortune, and almost my honestie, to buy false
hope, false friends, and shallow praise;—and be it remembered, that he
who casteth up this reckoning of a courtlie minnion, will sette his
summe like a foole at the ende, for not being a knave at the beginninge.
Oh, that I could boaste, with chaunter David, _In te speravi Domine!_”
Many ill-regulated persons thoughtlessly waste their own time
simultaneously with that of others. Lord Sandwich, when he presided at
the Board of Admiralty, paid no attention to any memorial that extended
beyond a single page. “If any man,” he said, “will draw up his case, and
will put his name to the bottom of the first page, I will give him an
immediate reply: where he compels me to turn over the page, he must wait
my pleasure.”
George III., though always willing and ready for business, disliked (as
who does not?) long speeches out of season; and grievously lamented the
well-informed but verbose and ill-timed eloquence of his minister,
Grenville. “When,” such were the King’s own words to Lord Bute, “he has
wearied me for two hours, he looks at his watch to see if he may not
tire me for one hour more.”
Paley had an ingenious mode of economising his time, and keeping off
these time-wasters. The Earl of Ellenborough is in possession of the
only original portrait of the Doctor, which was painted for the earl’s
father by Romney. Paley was painted with the fishing-rod, by his own
particular desire; not because he cared much about fishing, but because
while he was so occupied he could keep intruders at a distance, and give
his mind to uninterrupted thought. He kept people away, not because they
disturbed the fish, but because they disturbed him. _He composed his
works while he seemed to fish._[25]
Sterne, in one of his fascinating Letters, writes: “Time wastes too
fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my
pen: the days and hours of it more precious, my dear Jenny, than the
rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a
windy day, never to return more. Every thing presses on; whilst thou art
twisting that lock,—see, it grows gray; and every time I kiss thy hand
to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that
eternal separation which we are shortly to make.”
Thomson’s habit of composition while he lay in bed has been mentioned.
We knew a reverend vicar who usually composed his sermon in bed, and
committed it to paper next morning. Dr. Wallis, who nearly two centuries
ago was professor of geometry at Oxford, attained the power of making
arithmetical calculations “without the assistance of pen and ink, or
aught equivalent thereunto,” to such an extent, that he extracted the
square root of three down to twenty places of decimals. We must indeed
suppose him to have had originally some peculiar aptitude for such
calculations; but he describes himself to have acquired it by practising
at night and in the dark, when there was nothing to be seen, and nothing
to be heard, that would disturb his attention. It is in such
uninterrupted intervals that we best learn to think; and Sir Benjamin
Brodie[26] acknowledges that in these ways he had not unfrequently
derived ample compensation for the wearisome hours of a sleepless night.
Division of time is the grand secret of successful industry. Lockhart,
in his _Life of Scott_, shows how effectually the illustrious subject of
his memoir found opportunity for unequalled literary labour, even while
enjoying all the amusements of a man of leisure. “Sir Walter rose by
five o’clock, lit his own fire when the season required one, and shaved
and dressed with great deliberation; for,” says his biographer, “he was
a very martinet as to all but the mere coxcombries of the toilet, not
abhorring effeminate dandyism itself so cordially as the slightest
approach to personal slovenliness, or even those ‘bed-gown and slipper
tricks,’ as he called them, in which literary men are so apt to indulge.
Arrayed in his shooting-jacket, or whatever dress he meant to use till
dinner-time, he was seated at his desk by six o’clock, all his papers
arranged before him in the most accurate order, and his books of
reference marshalled around him on the floor, while at least one
favourite dog lay watching his eye just beyond the line of
circumvallation. Thus, by the time the family assembled for breakfast,
between nine and ten, he had done enough (in his own language) ‘to break
the neck of the day’s work.’ After breakfast a couple of hours more were
given to his solitary tasks, and by noon he was, as he used to say, ‘his
own man.’ When the weather was bad, he would labour incessantly all the
morning; but the general rule was to be out and on horseback by one
o’clock at the latest; while, if any more distant excursion had been
proposed overnight, he was ready to start on it by ten; his occasional
rainy days of unintermitted study forming, as he said, a fund in his
favour, out of which he was entitled to draw for accommodation whenever
the sun shone with special brightness.”
Sir Walter Scott, writing to a friend who had obtained a situation, gave
him this excellent practical advice: “You must be aware of stumbling
over a propensity, which easily besets you from the habit of not having
your time fully employed; I mean what the women very expressively call
_dawdling_. Your motto must be _Hoc age_. Do instantly whatever is to be
done, and take the hours of recreation after business, and never before
it. When a regiment is under march, the rear is often thrown into
confusion because the front does not move steadily and without
interruption. It is the same thing with business. If that which is first
in hand is not instantly, steadily, and readily despatched, other things
accumulate behind, till affairs begin to press all at once, and no human
brain can stand the confusion. Pray mind this: this is a habit of mind
which is very apt to beset men of intellect and talent, especially when
their time is not regularly filled up, and left at their own
arrangement. But it is like the ivy round the oak, and ends by limiting,
if it does not destroy, the power of manly and necessary exertion. I
must love a man so well, to whom I offer such a word of advice, that I
will not apologise for it, but expect to hear you are become as regular
as a Dutch clock,—hours, quarters, minutes, all marked and appropriated.
This is a great cast in life, and must be played with all skill and
caution.”
Coleridge observes: “It would, indeed, be superfluous to attempt a proof
of the importance of Method in the business and economy of active or
domestic life. From the cotter’s hearth, or the workshop of the artisan,
to the palace or the arsenal, the first merit, that which admits neither
substitute nor equivalent, is, that _every thing is in its place_. Where
this charm is wanting, every other merit loses its name, or becomes an
additional ground of accusation and regret. Of one by whom it is
eminently possessed, we say proverbially, he is like clockwork. The
resemblance extends beyond the point of regularity, and yet falls short
of the truth. Both do, indeed, at once divide and announce the silent
and otherwise undistinguishable lapse of time. But the man of methodical
industry and honourable pursuits does more: he realises its ideal
divisions, and gives a character and individuality to its moments. If
the idle are described as killing time, he may be justly said to call it
into life and moral being, while he makes it the distinct object not
only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organises the
hours, and gives them a soul; and that the very essence of which is to
fleet away, and ever more _to have been_, he takes up into his own
permanence, and communicates to it the imperishableness of a spiritual
nature. Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies, thus directed,
are thus methodised, it is less truly affirmed, that he lives in time,
and that time lives in him. His days, months, and years, as the stops
and punctual marks in the records of duties performed, will survive the
wreck of worlds, and remain extant when time itself shall be no
more.”[27] This is admirable reasoning.
A great deal has been said against routine and red tape, or rather the
abuse of the latter; but its proper use has much to do with success.
Curran, when Master of the Rolls, once said to Grattan, “You would be
the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you would buy a few yards of
red tape, and tie up your bills and papers;” though another version of
the anecdote has, “_tie up your thoughts_.” This was the fault and
misfortune of Sir James Mackintosh: he never knew the use of red tape,
and was utterly unfit for the common business of life. That a guinea
represented a quantity of shillings, and that it would barter for a
quantity of cloth, he was well aware; but the accurate number of the
baser coin, or the just measurement of the manufactured articles to
which he was entitled for his gold, he could never learn, and it was
impossible to teach him. Hence his life was often an example of the
ancient and melancholy struggle of genius with the difficulties of
existence.
The tying-up thoughts corresponds with Fuller’s aphorism, “Marshall thy
thoughts into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight
trussed and perched up in bundles, than when it lies untoward, flapping
and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads
are most portable.” This is the plan adopted by lawyers upon their
tables. The Duke of Wellington had a table upon which his papers were
thus arranged; and, during his absence for any length of time, a sort of
lid was placed upon the table and locked, so as to secure the papers
without disturbing their arrangement.
The Duke of Wellington is also known to have been an early riser; the
advantages of which were illustrated throughout his long life. His
service of the Sovereigns and the public of this country for more than
half a century,—in diplomatic situations and in councils, as well as in
the army,—has scarcely a parallel in British history. His Despatches are
the best evidence of his well-regulated mind in education. No letters
could ever be more temperately or more perspicuously expressed than
those famous documents. They show what immense results in the aggregate
were obtained by the Duke, solely in virtue of habits which he had
sedulously cultivated from his boyhood—early rising, strict attention to
details, taking nothing ascertainable for granted, unflagging industry,
and silence, except when speech was necessary, or certainly harmless.
His early habit of punctuality is pleasingly illustrated in the
following anecdote: “I will take care to be punctual at five to-morrow
morning,” said the engineer of New London Bridge, in acceptance of the
Duke’s request that he would meet him at that hour the following
morning. “Say a quarter before five,” replied the Duke, with a quiet
smile; “I owe all I have achieved to being ready a quarter of an hour
before it was deemed necessary to be so; and I learned that lesson when
a boy.”
Whoever has seen “the Duke’s bedroom” at Apsley-house, and its plain
appointments, will not regard it as a chamber of indolence. It was, a
few years since, narrow, shapeless, and ill-lighted; the bedstead small,
provided only with a mattress and bolster, and scantily curtained with
green silk; the only ornaments of the walls were an unfinished sketch,
two cheap prints of military men, and a small portrait in oil: yet here
slept the Great Duke, whose “eightieth year was by.” In the grounds and
shrubbery he took daily walking exercise, where with the garden-engine
he was wont to enjoy exertion; reminding one of General Bonaparte at St.
Helena, “amusing himself with the pipe of the fire-engine, spouting
water on the trees and flowers in his favourite garden.”
---------------------
Footnote 24:
Brewster’s _Meditations for the Aged_.
Footnote 25:
Communication to _Notes and Queries_, 3d series, No. 47.
Footnote 26:
_Psychological Inquiries_, part ii. 1862. The Author died in the
autumn of 1862, at his beautiful retreat, Broome Park (formerly
Tranquil Dale), at the foot of the fine range of the Betchworth Hills,
in Surrey. In the _Inquiries_ are some interesting traces of the work
having been written in the tranquillity of Broome, and its picturesque
characteristics of noble cedars, elms, and chestnuts, stream and sheet
of water, and mineral spring. In the opening pages, “the fresh air and
quiet of his residence in the country” evidently refers to Broome; and
throughout the volume are occasional references to the geniality of
the place for the group of philosophers who keep up the mode of
dialogue. Sir Benjamin Brodie was some time President of the Royal
Society; and it may be worthy of notice, that his two volumes of
“Inquiries,” in their thoughtful tone and reflective colour, bear some
resemblance to the two volumes produced in the retirement of his
illustrious predecessor in the Chair of the Royal Society—Sir Humphry
Davy; but with this difference,—that Sir Benjamin Brodie’s Researches
are of more practical application than the speculative Dialogues of
our great chemical philosopher, Davy.
Footnote 27:
Coleridge, however, was a better preacher than practitioner of what he
so urgently recommends. When in his younger days he was offered a
share in the _London Journal_, by which he could have made two
thousand pounds a year, provided he would devote his time seriously to
the interest of the work, he declined,—making the reply, so often
praised for its disinterestedness, “I will not give up the country,
and the lazy reading of old folios, for two thousand times two
thousand pounds; in short, beyond three hundred and fifty pounds a
year, I consider money a real evil.” The “lazy reading of old folios”
led to laziness, the indolent gratification of mind and sense.
Degenerating into an opium-eater, and a mere purposeless theoriser,
Coleridge wasted time, talents, and health; came to depend, in old
age, on the charity of others; and died at last, with every one
regretting, even his friends, that he had done nothing worthy of his
genius. The world is full of men having Coleridge’s faults, without
Coleridge’s abilities; men who cannot, or will not, see beyond the
present; who are too lazy to work for more than a temporary
subsistence, and who squander, in pleasure or idleness, energy and
health, which ought to lay up a capital for old age.
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