I HAVE no time,—that is not only the most familiar and convenient excuse for not doing one’s duty; it is also, one must confess, the excuse which has in it the greatest appearance of truth. Is it a good excuse? I must at once admit that within certain limits the excuse is reasonable, but I shall try to show how it is that this lack of time occurs, and how one may, at least in some degree, find the time he needs. Thus my sermon differs from those of the preachers, in having, not three heads, but only two. This I say to propitiate those who may protest that they have no time for reading.
The most immediate reason, then, for lack of time is to be found in the character of the present age. There is just now a prevailing restlessness, and a continuous mood of excitement, from which, unless one make himself a hermit, he cannot wholly escape. One who lives at all in these days must live fast. If one could observe the modern world as a bird might look down upon it, and at the same time could distinguish the details of its life, he would see beneath him a picture like that of a restless and swarming ant-hill, where even the railway trains, as they cross and recross each other by night and day, would be enough to bewilder his brain. Something of this bewilderment is, in fact, felt by almost every one who is involved in the movement of the time. There are a great many people who have not the least idea why they are thus all day long in a hurry. People whose circumstances permit complete leisure are to be seen rushing through the streets, or whirling away in a train, or crowding out of the theatre, as if there were awaiting them at home the most serious tasks. The fact is that they simply yield to the general movement. One might be led to fancy that the most precious and most unusual possession on earth was the possession of time. We say that time is money, yet people who have plenty of money seem to have no time; and even the people who despise money are constantly admonishing us, and our over-worked children, to remember the Apostle’s saying, and “to redeem the time.” Thus the modern world seems pitiless in its exhortation to work. Human beings are driven like horses until they drop. Many lives are ruined by the pace, but there are always more lives ready like horses to be driven.
Yet the results of this restless haste are in the main not convincing. There have been periods in history when people, without the restlessness and fatigue that now prevail, accomplished far more in many forms of human activity than men achieve to-day. Where are we now to find a man like Luther, who could write his incomparable translation of the Bible in an incredibly brief space of time, and yet not break down at the end of the task, or be forced to spend months or years in recreation or vacation? Where are the scholars whose works fill thousands of volumes, or the artists like Michael Angelo and Raphael, who could be at once painters, architects, sculptors and poets? Where shall we find a man like Titian, who at ninety years of age could still do his work without the necessity of retiring each year to a summer resort or sanitarium? The fact is that the nervous haste of our day cannot be wholly explained by assuming that modern men do more work, or better work, than their predecessors. It must be possible to live, if not without perfect rest, still without haste, and yet accomplish something.
The first condition of escape from this ineffective haste is, beyond doubt, the resolution not to be swept away by the prevailing current of the age, as though one had no will of his own. On the contrary, one must oppose this current and determine to live as a free man, and not as a slave either of work or of pleasure. Our present system of the organization of labor makes this resolution far from easy. Indeed, our whole manner of thinking about money-making and our painstaking provision of money for future generations—our capitalist system, in short—increase the difficulty. Here is the solemn background of our present question, with which I do not propose to deal. We may simply notice that the problem of the use of time is closely involved with the problem of that radical change which civilization itself must experience before it reaches a more equitable division of labor and a more equitable distribution of prosperity. So long as there are people, and especially educated people, who work only when they are forced to work and for no other purpose than to free themselves and their children as soon as possible from the burden of work; so long as there are people who proudly say: “Je suis d’une famille où on n’avait pas de plume qu’aux chapeaux,”—so long must there be many people who have too little time simply because a few have too much. All this, however, is of the future. The only practical problem for our own age is to maintain a sort of defensive attitude toward our lack of time, and to seek less radical ways of fortifying ourselves. Let me enumerate some of these ways.
The best way of all to have time is to have the habit of regular work, not to work by fits and starts, but in definite hours of the day,—though not of the night,—and to work six days in the week, not five and not seven. To turn night into day or Sunday into a work-day is the best way to have neither time nor capacity for work. Even a vacation fails of its purpose, if it be given to no occupation whatever. I am not without hope that the time may come when medical science will positively demonstrate that regular work, especially as one grows older, is the best preservative both of physical and intellectual health. I may even add for the sake of women among my readers, that here is the best preservative of beauty also. Idleness is infinitely more wearisome than work, and induces also much more nervousness; for it weakens that power of resistance which is the foundation of health.
Work, it is true, may be excessive, but this is most obviously the case when one cares more for the result of his work than he does for the work itself. Under such conditions, it is peculiarly difficult to exercise moderation, and as an ancient preacher remarks with a sigh: “Work is given to every man according to his power, but his heart cannot abide by it.” In such cases, however, Nature herself has given us a monitor in that physical fatigue which work itself produces. One need only take account of such fatigue, and not cheat it by stimulants, and then, even without much philosophizing, he will not lack self-control.
The habit of regular work is further greatly encouraged by having a definite vocation which involves positive tasks and obligations. Thus the socialistic romances which draw a picture of the future of the world are quite justified when they describe the universal organization of industry under the form of an army, for an army represents that way of life in which order and duty in one’s work are most emphasized. Every Swiss citizen knows that, with the exception of occasional excessive demands, he has never been in better health than when serving his term in the army. Every hour in the day then had its regular and sufficient task, and no one was called to consider whether he desired to do things or not to do them, while no one had time to anticipate the tasks of the following day. Here is the misfortune of many rich people in our day,—that they have no definite vocation. As the common saying has it, “There is no ‘must’ for them.” For many such persons, a specific business would be a redemption from the dilettantism which now threatens their peace of mind. They might well follow the example of that Bavarian prince who has undertaken the profession of an oculist. I am even inclined to believe that part of the movement toward the higher education which is so conspicuous among women in our day is simply the response to this demand of human nature for some definite vocation.
Another question much discussed in our time concerns the division of one’s working day. In great cities with their vast distances, in the case of unmarried persons engaged in more or less mechanical tasks, and in the case of all people who regard their work as a burden to be thrown off as soon as possible, there is some advantage in working continuously and without interruption. This is what we are in the habit of calling the English method. It is never possible, however, to accomplish in this way so much intellectual work of a productive character as may be done under the Swiss custom of a pause at midday. No one can continuously, or even with momentary pauses, devote himself for six or eight hours to work of an intellectual character. Even if he allow himself an hour’s interval, the sense of strain remains, together with an abbreviation of time for work in the afternoon. On the other hand, under the Swiss custom, it is perfectly easy to work for ten or eleven hours a day,—four in the morning, four in the afternoon, and two or three in the evening, and few of us could accomplish our work in that eight-hour day of which we hear so much, although we have not the honor of being reckoned as of the class known as “working-people.”
The next essential point is not to have too much fussiness about one’s work, or, in other words, not to permit oneself elaborate preparations as to time, place, surroundings, inclination, or mood. The inclination to work comes of itself when one has begun his work, and it is even true that a kind of fatigue with which one often begins—unless, indeed, it has some positive or physical cause—disappears as one seriously attacks his work, and does not simply, as it were, defend himself from it.
“Begin with cheerfulness thy task