How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Page: 5

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