How to Live on 24 Hours a Day(一天24小时如何过活)

VIP免费

2024-12-26 0 0 133.08KB 41 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

How to Live on Twenty-

Four Hours a Day

Arnold Bennett

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

PREFACE TO THIS EDITION

This preface, though placed at the beginning, as a preface must be,

should be read at the end of the book.

I have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this

small work, and many reviews of it--some of them nearly as long as the

book 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

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

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

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

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

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

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.

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 of possessions. A highly singular commodity, showered

upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself!

For remark! No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one

receives either more or less than you receive.

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Talk about an ideal democracy! In the realm of time there is no

aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect. Genius is never

rewarded by even an extra hour a day. And there is no punishment. Waste

your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply

will never be withheld from you. Mo mysterious power will say:--"This

man is a fool, if not a knave. He does not deserve time; he shall be cut off

at the meter." It is more certain than consols, and payment of income is not

affected by Sundays. Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible

to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot

waste to- morrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is

kept for you.

I said the affair was a miracle. Is it not?

You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it you

have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of

your immortal soul. Its right use, its most effective use, is a matter of the

highest urgency and of the most thrilling actuality. All depends on that.

Your happiness--the elusive prize that you are all clutching for, my

friends!-- depends on that. Strange that the newspapers, so enterprising

and up-to- date as they are, are not full of "How to live on a given income

of time," instead of "How to live on a given income of money"! Money is

far commoner than time. When one reflects, one perceives that money is

just about the commonest thing there is. It encumbers the earth in gross

heaps.

If one can't contrive to live on a certain income of money, one earns a

little more--or steals it, or advertises for it. One doesn't necessarily muddle

one's life because one can't quite manage on a thousand pounds a year; one

braces the muscles and makes it guineas, and balances the budget. But if

one cannot arrange that an income of twenty-four hours a day shall exactly

cover all proper items of expenditure, one does muddle one's life

definitely. The supply of time, though gloriously regular, is cruelly

restricted.

Which of us lives on twenty-four hours a day? And when I say

"lives," I do not mean exists, nor "muddles through." Which of us is free

from that uneasy feeling that the "great spending departments" of his daily

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

life are not managed as they ought to be? Which of us is quite sure that his

fine suit is not surmounted by a shameful hat, or that in attending to the

crockery he has forgotten the quality of the food? Which of us is not

saying to himself--which of us has not been saying to himself all his life:

"I shall alter that when I have a little more time"?

We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had,

all the time there is. It is the realisation of this profound and neglected

truth (which, by the way, I have not discovered) that has led me to the

minute practical examination of daily time-expenditure.

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

II THE DESIRE TO EXCEED

ONE'S PROGRAMME

"But," someone may remark, with the English disregard of

everything except the point, "what is he driving at with his twenty-four

hours a day? I have no difficulty in living on twenty-four hours a day. I do

all that I want to do, and still find time to go in for newspaper

competitions. Surely it is a simple affair, knowing that one has only

twenty-four hours a day, to content one's self with twenty-four hours a

day!"

To you, my dear sir, I present my excuses and apologies. You are

precisely the man that I have been wishing to meet for about forty years.

Will you kindly send me your name and address, and state your charge for

telling me how you do it? Instead of me talking to you, you ought to be

talking to me. Please come forward. That you exist, I am convinced, and

that I have not yet encountered you is my loss. Meanwhile, until you

appear, I will continue to chat with my companions in distress--that

innumerable band of souls who are haunted, more or less painfully, by the

feeling that the years slip by, and slip by, and slip by, and that they have

not yet been able to get their lives into proper working order.

If we analyse that feeling, we shall perceive it to be, primarily, one of

uneasiness, of expectation, of looking forward, of aspiration. It is a source

of constant discomfort, for it behaves like a skeleton at the feast of all our

enjoyments. We go to the theatre and laugh; but between the acts it raises a

skinny finger at us. We rush violently for the last train, and while we are

cooling a long age on the platform waiting for the last train, it promenades

its bones up and down by our side and inquires: "O man, what hast thou

done with thy youth? What art thou doing with thine age?" You may urge

that this feeling of continuous looking forward, of aspiration, is part of life

itself, and inseparable from life itself. True!

But there are degrees. A man may desire to go to Mecca. His

conscience tells him that he ought to go to Mecca. He fares forth, either by

the aid of Cook's, or unassisted; he may probably never reach Mecca; he

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

HowtoLiveonTwenty-FourHoursaDay1HowtoLiveonTwenty-FourHoursaDayArnoldBennettHowtoLiveonTwenty-FourHoursaDay2PREFACETOTHISEDITIONThispreface,thoughplacedatthebeginning,asaprefacemustbe,shouldbereadattheendofthebook.Ihavereceivedalargeamountofcorrespondenceconcerningthissmallwork,andmanyreviewsofit--s...

展开>> 收起<<

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day(一天24小时如何过活).pdf

共41页,预览9页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day(一天24小时如何过活)

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: