How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day
by
Arnold Bennett
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 smallwork, and many reviews of it—some of them nearly as long as the bookitself—have been printed. But scarcely any of the comment has beenadverse. Some people have objected to a frivolity of tone; but as thetone is not, in my opinion, at all frivolous, this objection did notimpress me; and had no weightier reproach been put forward I mightalmost have been persuaded that the volume was flawless! A moreserious stricture has, however, been offered—not in the press, but bysundry obviously sincere correspondents—and I must deal with it. Areference to page 43 will show that I anticipated and feared thisdisapprobation. The sentence against which protests have been made isas follows:—"In the majority of instances he [the typical man] doesnot precisely feel a passion for his business; at best he does notdislike it. He begins his business functions with some reluctance, aslate as he can, and he ends them with joy, as early as he can. And hisengines, 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 manybusiness men—not merely those in high positions or with fineprospects, but modest subordinates with no hope of ever being muchbetter off—who do enjoy their business functions, who do not shirkthem, who do not arrive at the office as late as possible and depart asearly as possible, who, in a word, put the whole of their force intotheir 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 knewit. Both in London and in the provinces it has been my lot to spendlong years in subordinate situations of business; and the fact did notescape me that a certain proportion of my peers showed what amounted toan honest passion for their duties, and that while engaged in thoseduties they were really living to the fullest extent of which theywere capable. But I remain convinced that these fortunate and happyindividuals (happier perhaps than they guessed) did not and do notconstitute a majority, or anything like a majority. I remain convincedthat the majority of decent average conscientious men of business (menwith aspirations and ideals) do not as a rule go home of a nightgenuinely tired. I remain convinced that they put not as much but aslittle of themselves as they conscientiously can into the earning of alivelihood, and that their vocation bores rather than interests them.
Nevertheless, I admit that the minority is of sufficient importance tomerit attention, and that I ought not to have ignored it so completelyas I did do. The whole difficulty of the hard-working minority was putin a single colloquial sentence by one of my correspondents. He wrote:"I am just as keen as anyone on doing something to 'exceed myprogramme,' but allow me to tell you that when I get home at six thirtyp.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 throwthemselves with passion and gusto into their daily business task, isinfinitely less deplorable than the case of the majority, who gohalf-heartedly and feebly through their official day. The f