 This is How To Live On 24 Hours A Day. Written by Arnold Bennett. Read by Matt Montanez. Preface. 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 scarcity 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 correspondence, 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 relunctants 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 HP. I am assured in accents of unmistakable sincerity that there are many businessmen, 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 duty. 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 consciously can into the earning of a livelihood and not their vocation bores rather than interest them. Nevertheless, I admit that the minority is a 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 hardworking 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 program. But allow me to tell you that when I get home at 6 30pm, 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 tasks 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 HP. The other eight working hours of their day may be badly organized or even frittered away, but it is less disastrous to waste eight hours a day than 16 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 was 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 program is bigger than his, I want to exceed my program to 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 Rose? 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 40 hours from Saturday to Monday is yours. Just sample complete ready to continue.