CHAPTER IV

POSSIBILITIES IN SPARE MOMENTS.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. - FRANKLIN.

Eternity itself cannot restore the loss struck from the minute. - ANCIENT POET.

Periunt et imputantur, - the hours perish and are laid to our charge. - INSCRIPTION ON A DIAL AT OXFORD.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. - SHAKESPEARE.

Every hour in a man's life has its own special work possible for it, and for no other hour within the allotted span of years,

and once gone it will not return. - NOEL PATON.

A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. - BACON.

Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in after life, with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine

dreams, and that waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature, beyond your darkest

reckoning. - GLADSTONE.

There is not an hour of youth but is trembling with destinies-not a moment of which, once past, the appointed work can

ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron. - RUSKIN.

Lost I Somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is

offered, for they are gone forever. - HORACE MANN.

Give me insight into today, and you may have the antique and future worlds. -EMERSON.

There is no business, no avocation whatever, which will not permit a man who has an inclination, to give a little time

every day to the studies of his youth. - WYTTENBACH.

And the plea that this or that man has no time for culture will vanish as soon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriously into our present use of time. - MATTHEW ARNOLD

"WHAT is the price of that book ?" at length asked a man who had been dawdling for an hour in the front store of Benjamin Franklin's newspaper establishment. "One dollar," replied the clerk. "One dollar," echoed the lounger; "can't you take less than that ?" “One dollar is the price," was the answer.

The would-be purchaser looked over the books on sale awhile longer, and then inquired: " Is Mr. Franklin in ?" "Yes," said the clerk, "he is very busy in the press. room." "Well, I want to see him," persisted the man. The proprietor was called, and the stranger asked " What is the lowest, Mr. Franklin, that you can take for that book ? " " One dollar and a quarter," was the prompt rejoinder. "One dollar and a quarter! Why, your clerk asked me only a dollar just now." “True," said Franklin, "and I could have better afforded to take a dollar than to leave my work."

The man seemed surprised; but, wishing to end a parley of his own seeking, he demanded: "Well, come now, tell me your lowest price for this book." " One dollar and a half," replied Franklin. " A dollar and a half! Why, you offered it yourself for a dollar and a quarter." "Yes," said Franklin coolly, "and I could better have taken that price then than a dollar and a half now."

The man silently laid the money on the counter, took his book, and left the store, having received a salutary lesson from a master in the art of transmuting time, at will, into either wealth or wisdom.

Time-wasters are everywhere.

(In the floor of the gold-working room in the United States Mint at Philadelphia, there is a wooden latticework which is taken up when the floor is swept, and the fine particles of gold-dust, thousands of dollars yearly are thus saved. So every successful man has a kind of network to catch "the raspings and parings of existence, those leavings of days and wee bits of hours" which most people sweep into the waste of life. He who hoards and turns to account all odd minutes, half hours, unexpected holidays, gaps "between times," and chasms of waiting for unpunctual persons, achieves results which astonish those who have not mastered this secret.

“All that I have accomplished, or expect, or hope to accomplish," said Elihu Burritt, "has been and will be by that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap-particle by particle, thought by thought, fact by fact.

And if ever I was actuated by ambition, its highest and warmest aspiration reached no further than the hope to set before the young men of my country an example in employing those invaluable fragments of time called moments."

“I have been wondering how Ned contrived to monopolize all the talents of the family," said a brother, found in a brown study after listening to one of Burke's speeches in Parliament; "but then I remember, when we were at play, he was always at work."

The days come to us like friends in disguise, bringing priceless gifts from an unseen hand; but, if we do not use them, they are borne silently away, never to return. Each successive morning new gifts are brought, but if we failed to accept those that were brought yesterday and the day before, we become less and less able to turn them to account, until the ability to appreciate and utilize them is exhausted. Wisely was it said that lost wealth may be regained by industry and economy, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance and medicine, but lost time is gone forever.

"Oh, it's only five minutes or ten minutes till mealtime ; there's no time to do anything now," is one of the commonest expressions heard in the family. But what monuments have been built up by poor boys with no chance, out of broken fragments of time which many of us throw away. The very hours you have wasted, if improved, might have insured your success.

" While the students at Andover were waiting for breakfast at the boarding-house," said a lady, "the test of the young men would stand chaffing each other; but Joseph Cook, if there were only a half minute to spare, would turn to the big dictionary in the corner of the room, and learn the synonyms of a word, or search out its derivation." It is a cheap thing to say that Joseph Cook has evidently swallowed the dictionary, and cheap people often make the remark; but our age has not produced many nobler geniuses nor a more magnificent specimen of true self-culture.

Marion Harland has accomplished - wonders, and she has been able to do this by economizing the minutes to shape her novels and newspaper articles, when her children were in bed and whenever she could get a spare minute. Though she has done so much, yet all her life has been subject to interruptions which would have discouraged most women from attempting anything outside their regular family duties. She has glorified the commonplace as few other women have done. Harriet Beecher Stowe, too, wrote her great masterpiece, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in the midst of pressing household cares. Beecher read Froude's "England," a little each day that he had to wait for dinner. Longfellow translated the "Inferno" by snatches of ten minutes a day, while waiting for his coffee to boil, persisting for years until the work was done.

Hugh Miller, while working hard as a stone-mason, found time to read scientific books, and write the lessons learned from the blocks of stone he handled.

Madame de Genlis, when companion of the future queen of France, composed several of her charming volumes while waiting for the princess to whom she gave her daily lessons.

Burns wrote many of his most beautiful poems while working on a farm. The author of "Paradise Lost" was a teacher, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Secretary of the Lord Protector, and had to write his sublime poetry whenever he could snatch a few minutes from a busy life. John Stuart Mill did much of his best work as a writer while a clerk in the East India House. Galileo was a surgeon, yet to the improvement of his spare moments the world owes some of its greatest discoveries.

If a genius like Gladstone carries through life a little book in his pocket lest an unexpected spare moment slip from his grasp, what should we of common abilities not resort to, to save the precious moments from oblivion ? What a rebuke is such a life to the thousands of young men and womenwho throw away whole months and even years of that which the " Grand Old Man " hoards up even to the smallest fragments.

Many a great man has snatched his reputation from odd bits of time which others, who wonder at their failure to get on, throw away. In Dante's time nearly every literary man in Italy was a hardworking merchant, physician, statesman, judge, or soldier.

While Michael Faraday was employed binding books, he devoted all his leisure to, experiments. At one time he wrote to a friend, "Time is all I require. Oh, that I could purchase at a cheap rate some of our modern gentleman's spare hours, - nay, days."

Oh, the power of ceaseless industry to perform miracles !

Alexander von Humboldt's days were so occupied with his business that he had to pursue his scientific labors in the night or early morning, while others were asleep.

Oh, what wonders have been performed in " one hour a day !"

One hour a day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits, and profitably employed, would enable any man of ordinary capacity to master a complete science. One hour a day would make an ignorant man a well informed man in ten years. One hour a day would earn enough to pay for two daily and two weekly papers, two leading magazines, and a dozen good books. In an hour a day a boy or girl could read twenty pages thoughtfully - over seven thousand pages, or eighteen large volumes in a year. An hour a day might make all the difference between bare existence and useful, happy living. An hour, a day might make - nay, has made - an unknown man a famous one, a useless man a benefactor to his race. Consider, then, the mighty possibilities of two - four - yes, six hours a day that are, on the average, thrown away by young men and women in the restless desire for fun and diversion!

Every young man should have a hobby to occupy his leisure hours, something useful to which he can turn with delight, whenever he has a little leisure time. It might be in line with his work or otherwise, only his heart must be in it. A stone-cutter had butterflies for a hobby; and, when he died, he had one of the best collections in the world.

If one chooses wisely, the study, research, and occupation that a hobby confers will broaden character and transform the home.

" He has nothing to prevent him but too much idleness, which I have observed," says Burke, "fills up a man's time much more completely and leaves him less his master, than any sort of employment whatsoever."

Some boys will pick up a good education in the odds and ends of time which others carelessly throw away, as one man saves a fortune by small economies which others disdain to practice. What young man is too busy to get an hour a day for self-improvement ? Charles C. Frost, the celebrated shoemaker of Vermont, resolved to devote one hour a day to study. He became one of the most noted mathematicians in the United States. He also gained an enviable reputation in other departments of knowledge. John Hunter, like Napoleon, allowed himself but four hours of sleep, and it took Professor Owen ten years to arrange and classify the specimens in Comparative Anatomy, over twenty-four thousand in number, which Hunter's industry had collected. What a record for a boy who began his studies while working as a carpenter!

John Q. Adams complained bitterly when robbed of his time by those who had no right to it. An Italian scholar put over his door the inscription: "Whoever tarries here must join in my labors." Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, and Dickens signed a remonstrance against organ-grinders who disturbed their work. Baxter once had callers who said, "We fear we break in upon your time." " To be sure you do," said the man who hoarded his moments as a miser hoards his gold. .

"My morning haunts," said Milton, "are where they should be, at home; not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring; in winter, often ere the sound of any bell awakens men to labor or devotion; in summer, as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read, till attention be weary or memory have its full freight, then with useful and generous labors preserving the body's health and hardiness."

"When one begins to turn in bed," says Wellington, “it is time to turn out .”

Many of the greatest men of history earned their fame outside of their regular occupations in odd bits of time which most people squander. Spenser made his reputation in his spare time, while Secretary of the Lord Deputy of Ireland. Sir John Lubbock's fame rests on his pre-historic studies, prosecuted outside of his busy banking-hours. Southey, seldom idle for a minute, wrote a hundred volumes. Hawthorne's notebook shows that he never let a chance thought or circumstance escape him. Franklin was a tireless worker. He crowded his meals and sleep into as small compass as possible, that he might gain time for study. When a child, he became impatient of his father's long grace at table, and asked him if he could not say grace over a whole cask once for all, and save time. He wrote some of his best productions on shipboard, such as his "Improvement of Navigation " and " Smoky Chimneys."

What a lesson there is in Raphael's brief thirty-seven years to those who plead "no time" as an excuse for wasted lives!”

Great men have ever been misers of moments. Cicero said: "What others give to public shows and entertainments, nay, even to mental and bodily rest, I give to. the study of philosophy." A great Chancellor of France wrote a valuable work in odd moments while waiting for his meals. Lord Bacon's fame springs from the work of his leisure hours while Chancellor of England. During an interview with a great monarch, Goethe suddenly excused himself, went into an adjoining room and wrote down a thought for his "Faust," lest it should be forgotten. Sir Humphry Davy achieved eminence in spare moments in an attic of an apothecary's shop. Pope would often rise in the night to write out thoughts that would not come during the busy day. Grote wrote his matchless "History of Greece " during the hours of leisure snatched from his duties as a banker.

George Stephenson seized the moments as though they were gold. He educated himself and did much of his best work during his spare moments. He learned arithmetic during the night shifts when he was an engineer. Mozart would not allow a moment to slip by unimproved. He would sometimes write two whole nights and a day without intermission. He would not stop his work long enough to sleep. He wrote his famous “Requiem " on his death-bed.

Caesar said: "Under my tent in the fiercest struggle of war I have always found time to, think of many other things." He was once shipwrecked, and had to swim ashore; but he carried with him the manuscript of his " Commentaries," upon which he was at work when the ship went down.

Samuel Budgett seemed born to work. "Doing, doing, ever doing," says his biographer, "'he seemed to abhor idleness more than Nature abhors a vacuum. An idle hour would have been a sort of purgatory." In his notes he speaks of a "joyless and an uncomfortable Sabbath; and no wonder," he adds, " for I did not rise till half past five o'clock."

Dr. Mason Good translated "Lucretius" while riding to visit his patients in London. Dr. Darwin composed most of his works by writing his thoughts on scraps of paper wherever he happened to be. Watt learned chemistry and mathematics while working at his trade of a mathematical instrument-maker. A boy in Manchester, England, learned Latin and French while running errands. Henry Kirke White learned Greek while walking to and from the lawyer's office where he was studying. Dr. Burney learned Italian and French on horseback. Matthew Hale wrote his " Contemplations" while traveling on his circuit as judge.

Jeremy Bentham thought it a calamity to lose the least bit of time, and so arranged his work that not a moment would be wasted.

The present time is the raw material out of which we make whatever we will. Do not brood over the past, or dream of the future, but seize the instant and get your lesson from the hour. The man is yet unborn who rightly measures and folly realizes the value of an hour. As Fenelon says, God never gives but one moment at a time, and does not give a second until he withdraws the first.

Lord Brougham could not bear to lose a moment, yet he was so systematic that he always seemed to have more leisure than many who did not accomplish a tithe of what he did. He achieved distinction in politics, law, science, and literature.

Dr. Johnson wrote "Rasselas" in the evenings of a single week, to meet the expenses of his mother's funeral.

The wise Cato said that he regretted only three things in his life: telling his wife a secret, going once by sea when he could have gone by land, and passing one day, without doing anything.

Lincoln studied law during his spare hours while surveying, and learned the common branches unaided while tending store. Mrs. Somerville learned botany and astronomy; and wrote books while her neighbors were gossiping and idling. At eighty she published "Molecular and Microscopical Science."

The worst of a lost hour is not so much in the wasted time as in the wasted power. Idleness rusts the nerves and makes the muscles creak. Work has system, laziness has none. President Quincy never went to bed until he had laid his plans for the next day.

Dalton's industry was the passion of his life. He made and recorded over two hundred thousand meteorological observations. He seldom lost a moment.

In factories for making cloth a single broken thread ruins a whole web; it is traced back to the girl who made the blunder and the loss is deducted from her wages.

But who shall pay for the broken threads in life's great web ? We cannot throw back and forth an empty shuttle; threads of some kind follow every movement as we weave the web of our fate. It may be a shoddy thread of wasted hours or lost opportunities that will mar the fabric and mortify the workman forever; or it may be a golden thread which will add to its beauty and lustre. We cannot stop the shuttle or pull out the unfortunate thread which stretches across the fabric, a perpetual witness of our folly.

Don't defer your good deeds until you have time to do them. Very little good was ever done during hours of leisure. It is the men and women who are crowded with work who build hospitals, churches, and orphan asylums, and do the great charities of the world.

No one is anxious about a young man while he is

POSSIBILITIES IN SPARE MOMENTS. 73

busy in useful work. But where does he eat his lunch at noon? Where does he go when he leaves his boarding-house at night? What does he do after supper? Where does he spend his Sundays and holidays? The way he uses his spare moments reveals his character. The great majority of youth who go to the bad are ruined after supper.

Most of those who climb upward to honor and fame devote their evenings to study or work or the society of the wise and good. For the right use of these leisure hours, what we have called the waste of life, the odd moments usually thrown away, the author would plead with every youth. Each evening is a crisis, in the career of a young man. There is a deep significance in the lines of Whittier : -

"This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin; This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin."

Time is money. We should not be stingy or mean with it, but we should not throw away an hour any more than we would throw away a dollar-bill. Waste of time means waste of energy, waste of vitality, waste of character in dissipation. It means bad companions, bad habits. It means. the waste of opportunities which will never come back. Beware how you kill time, for all your future lives in it.

" Of memory many a poet sings; and

Hope hath oft inspired the rhyme;

But who the charm of music brings to celebrate the present time ?

Let the past guide, the future cheer, while youth and health are in there prime;

But, oh, be still thy greatest care-that awful point - the present time ! "

"And it is left for each," says Edward Everett, "by the cultivation of every talent, by watching with an eagle's eye for every chance of improvement, by redeeming time, defying temptation, and scorning sensual pleasure, to make himself useful, honored, and happy."