correspondents. He wrote: "I am just as keen as anyone on doing
something to 'exceed my programme,' but allow me to tell you that
when I get home at six thirty p.m. 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 task, 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 "h.p." The other eight
working hours of their day may be badly organised, or even frittered
away; but it is less disastrous to waste eight hours a day than
sixteen 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 is
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 programme is bigger than
his, I want to exceed my programme too! 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 rouse.

Well, you of the minority, let us assume that the intensity of your