But, after all, we have not yet named the chief element in the art of having time. It consists in banishing from one’s life all superfluities. Much which modern civilization regards as essential, is, in reality, superfluous, and while I shall indicate several things which appear to me unnecessary, I shall be quite content to have my reader supplement them by his own impressions. For instance, one superfluity is beer. It is superfluous at any time of the day and especially when drunk in the morning, after the fashion made popular by Prince Bismarck. Perhaps the greatest contributors to waste of time in this century are the brewers, and the time will come when people may regard the excessive drinking of beer as they now regard the excessive use of alcohol in other forms.
I may name as a second superfluity the excessive reading of newspapers. There are in our day people who regard themselves as educated, and who yet read nothing but newspapers. Their houses are built and furnished in all possible—and impossible—styles, and yet you will find in them hardly a dozen good books. They get their whole supply of ideas out of the newspapers and magazines, and these publications are more and more designed to meet the needs of such people. This excessive, or even exclusive, reading of newspapers is often excused on account of our political interests; but one has only to notice what it is in the newspapers which people are most anxious to read to arrive at a judgment whether this excuse is sound. I may add that the time of day dedicated to the newspaper is by no means unimportant. People, for instance, who devote their first hour in the morning to the reading of one or two newspapers lose thereby the freshest interest in their day’s work.
Another superfluity is the excessive going to meetings. A man who is much devoted to such gatherings can scarcely find time for serious work. Indeed, it is not necessary for him to do independent work; for he has substituted for his own judgment the judgment of the crowd, and the crowd carries him on its shoulders. A great waste of time occurs, further, among one class of people at the present time, through a pretended devotion to art. I do not refer to art practised by oneself, but to art as passively accepted; and I should perhaps make exception in what I say, of the art of music. In other forms of art many persons permit those impulses which should have stirred them to idealism, and to responsiveness toward the beautiful, to evaporate in æsthetic satisfactions. Many women, to speak frankly, are educated to acquire mere artistic appreciation; and they cannot, without severe struggles and against great hindrances, find the way back from this mood to any profitable and spiritually satisfying work.
Another superfluity is the devotion to social duties and the whole purposeless system of making “calls.” These habits are the mere shadows of genuine friendship, and of the intellectual stimulus through personal intercourse which they were originally intended to express. I need not speak of superfluous amusements. The theatre, for instance, to accomplish its legitimate aim needs so fundamental a reform that there would be really nothing left of its present methods. Finally, and of quite another category among the elements of culture in our time, I may name as superfluous the superficial and popular products of materialism, and with these the debasing French novels and dramas of the day. People of the educated class in our time, and especially people of the academic circle, ought to have the courage to say of such literature: “We know nothing about it.” Then perhaps one might have time to read something each day which was serious and educative; something that tended to strengthen the mind and to bring one into real contact with the intellectual movement of the age.
And now, lest there should be complaint of time wasted on such reading as this, I shall add but two other points. One of these, stated by Rothe, is the advice that it is most desirable not to take up one’s time with the details of one’s business affairs. Even if this is not altogether possible, one may, if he wish it, greatly reduce the care of details of administration, and live in a world of larger and happier thoughts. The other point, which has even more practical significance, is this: Limit yourself to that which you really know and which has been especially committed to your care. For your special task you will almost always have time enough. An Old Testament saying states it even more plainly: “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” As to the things which do not concern one’s special calling, but which have a certain significance in the world and a certain importance for culture, it may be necessary for one, once in his life, to acquire a superficial survey of them by a glance at the best original sources. One should thereafter leave these matters alone and not concern himself with them further.
Finally, in this enumeration of the things which waste one’s time, I may add that one must not permit himself to be overburdened with superfluous tasks. There are in our day an infinite number of these,—correspondence, committees, reports, and not the least, lectures. All of them take time, and it is extremely probable that nothing will come of them. When the Apostle Paul was addressing the Athenians, he remarked that they did nothing else than to hear some new thing. It was not the serious part of his address, or its spiritual quickening, to which they gave their attention, it was its novelty; and the outcome of his sermon was simply that some mocked, and the most friendly said with patronizing kindness: “We will hear thee again of this matter.” Indeed, the reporter of the incident finds it necessary to mention expressly, that one member of the Athenian City-Council and one woman in the audience received some lasting good from the Apostle’s address. How is it, let me ask you, with yourselves? Have the lectures which you have heard been to you in any way positive influences of insight and decision, or have they been merely the evidences of the speaker’s erudition?
Such are the ways which in our present social conditions are open to any one to use for saving time. I must add, however, that if one tries to use these ways of saving time, he will make another discovery. For one of the most essential elements of such happiness as we can reach on earth lies in not having too much time. The vastly greater proportion of human happiness consists in continuous and progressive work, with the blessing which is given to work and which in the end makes work itself a pleasure. The spirit of man is never more cheerful than when it has discovered its proper work. Make this discovery, first of all, if you wish to be happy. Most of the wrecks of human life are caused by having either no work, or too little work, or uncongenial work; and the human heart, which is so easily agitated, never beats more peacefully than in the natural activity of vigorous, yet satisfying, work. Only one must guard against making of work an idol, instead of serving God through one’s work. Those who forget this last distinction find themselves in later life doomed to intellectual or physical prostration.
There are, then, but two possessions which may be attained by persons of every condition, which never desert one through life, and are a constant consolation in misfortune. These are work and love. Those who shut these blessings out of life commit a greater sin than suicide. They do not even know what it is that they throw away. Rest without work is a thing which in this life one cannot endure. The best blessing which can be promised is that last blessing of Moses for Asher: “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Better than this one should not desire, and if one has this he should be thankful. Yet, it must be added, this contentedness in continuous work is possible only when one abandons ambition; for ambition is always most deeply anxious not to do work, but as soon as possible to get the result of work, even if that result is illusive. Ambition is the Moloch of our time, to whom we feel bound to sacrifice even our own children, and who, more than all other foes, destroys the bodies and the souls of youth.
If, still further, one commit himself, as is so often the case, to that philosophy of materialism in which this brief life is the end of opportunity, so that but a few years are ours for the accomplishment of all which the pitiless and endless struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest permit, then there is an end of all restfulness and blessedness in work. Under such a view, time is indeed too short, and every art is indeed too long. The true spirit of work, which has no time for superfluities, but time enough for what is right and true, grows best in the soil of that philosophy which sees one’s work extending into the infinite world, and one’s life on earth as but one part of life itself. Then one gets strength to do his highest tasks, and patience among the grave difficulties and hindrances which confront him both within himself and in the times in which he lives. One is calmly indifferent to much which in the sight of this world alone may seem important, but which, seen in the light of eternity, loses significance. This is the meaning of that beautiful saying of the philosopher of Görlitz, which brings to our troubled time its message of comfort:
“He who, while here, lives the eternal life