This preface, though placed at the beginning, as a preface must be,
should be read at the end of the book.
I have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this small
work, and many reviews of it--some of them nearly as long as the book
itself--have been printed. But scarcely any of the comment has been
adverse. Some people have objected to a frivolity of tone; but as the
tone is not, in my opinion, at all frivolous, this objection did not
impress me; and had no weightier reproach been put forward I might
almost have been persuaded that the volume was flawless! A more
serious stricture has, however, been offered--not in the press, but by
sundry obviously sincere correspondents--and I must deal with it. A
reference to page 43 will show that I anticipated and feared this
disapprobation. The sentence against which protests have been made is
as follows:--"In the majority of instances he [the typical man] does
not precisely feel a passion for his business; at best he does not
dislike it. He begins his business functions with some reluctance, as
late as he can, and he ends them with joy, as early as he can. And his
engines, while he is engaged in his business, are seldom at their full
'h.p.'"
I am assured, in accents of unmistakable sincerity, that there are many
business men--not merely those in high positions or with fine
prospects, but modest subordinates with no hope of ever being much
better off--who do enjoy their business functions, who do not shirk
them, who do not arrive at the office as late as possible and depart as
early as possible, who, in a word, put the whole of their force into
their day's work and are genuinely fatigued at the end thereof.
I am ready to believe it. I do believe it. I know it. I always knew
it. Both in London and in the provinces it has been my lot to spend
long years in subordinate situations of business; and the fact did not
escape me that a certain proportion of my peers showed what amounted to
an honest passion for their duties, and that while engaged in those
duties they were really _living_ to the fullest extent of which they
were capable. But I remain convinced that these fortunate and happy
individuals (happier perhaps than they guessed) did not and do not
constitute a majority, or anything like a majority. I remain convinced
that the majority of decent average conscientious men of business (men
with aspirations and ideals) do not as a rule go home of a night
genuinely tired. I remain convinced that they put not as much but as
little of themselves as they conscientiously can into the earning of a
livelihood, and that their vocation bores rather than interests them.
Nevertheless, I admit that the minority is of sufficient importance to
merit attention, and that I ought not to have ignored it so completely
as I did do. The whole difficulty of the hard-working minority was put
in a single colloquial sentence by one of my correspondents. He wrote:
"I am just as keen as anyone on doing something to 'exceed my
programme,' but allow me to tell you that when I get home at six thirty
p.m. I am not anything like so fresh as you seem to imagine."
Now I must point out that the case of the minority, who throw
themselves with passion and gusto into their daily business task, is
infinitely less deplorable than the case of the majority, who go
half-heartedly and feebly through their official day. The former are
less in need of advice "how to live." At any rate during their
official day of, say, eight hours they are really alive; their engines
are giving the full indicated "h.p." The other eight working hours of
their day may be badly organised, or even frittered away; but it is
less disastrous to waste eight hours a day than sixteen hours a day; it
is better to have lived a bit than never to have lived at all. The real
tragedy is the tragedy of the man who is braced to effort neither in
the office nor out of it, and to this man this book is primarily
addressed. "But," says the other and more fortunate man, "although my
ordinary programme is bigger than his, I want to exceed my programme
too! I am living a bit; I want to live more. But I really can't do
another day's work on the top of my official day."
The fact is, I, the author, ought to have foreseen that I should appeal
most strongly to those who already had an interest in existence. It is
always the man who has tasted life who demands more of it. And it is
always the man who never gets out of bed who is the most difficult to
rouse.
Well, you of the minority, let us assume that the intensity of your
daily money-getting will not allow you to carry out quite all the
suggestions in the following pages. Some of the suggestions may yet
stand. I admit that you may not be able to use the time spent on the
journey home at night; but the suggestion for the journey to the office
in the morning is as practicable for you as for anybody. And that
weekly interval of forty hours, from Saturday to Monday, is yours just
as much as the other man's, though a slight accumulation of fatigue may
prevent you from employing the whole of your "h.p." upon it. There
remains, then, the important portion of the three or more evenings a
week. You tell me flatly that you are too tired to do anything outside
your programme at night. In reply to which I tell you flatly that if
your ordinary day's work is thus exhausting, then the balance of your
life is wrong and must be adjusted. A man's powers ought not to be
monopolised by his ordinary day's work. What, then, is to be done?
The obvious thing to do is to circumvent your ardour for your ordinary
day's work by a ruse. Employ your engines in something beyond the
programme before, and not after, you employ them on the programme
itself. Briefly, get up earlier in the morning. You say you cannot.
You say it is impossible for you to go earlier to bed of a night--to do
so would upset the entire household. I do not think it is quite
impossible to go to bed earlier at night. I think that if you persist
in rising earlier, and the consequence is insufficiency of sleep, you
will soon find a way of going to bed earlier. But my impression is
that the consequences of rising earlier will not be an insufficiency of
sleep. My impression, growing stronger every year, is that sleep is
partly a matter of habit--and of slackness. I am convinced that most
people sleep as long as they do because they are at 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.