"But,"someone may remark,with the English disregard of everything except the point,"what is he driving at with his twenty-four hours a day?
I have no difficulty in living on twenty-four hours a day.I do all that Iwant to do,and still find time to go in for newspaper competitions.Surely it is a simple affair,knowing that one has only twenty-four hours a day,to content one's self with twenty-four hours a day!"To you,my dear sir,I present my excuses and apologies.You are precisely the man that I have been wishing to meet for about forty years.Will you kindly send me your name and address,and state your charge for telling me how you do it?Instead of me talking to you,you ought to be talking to me.
Please come forward.That you exist,I am convinced,and that I have not yet encountered you is my loss.Meanwhile,until you appear,I will continue to chat with my companions in distress--that innumerable band of souls who are haunted,more or less painfully,by the feeling that the years slip by,and slip by,and slip by,and that they have not yet been able to get their lives into proper working order.
If we analyse that feeling,we shall perceive it to be,primarily,one of uneasiness,of expectation,of looking forward,of aspiration.It is a source of constant discomfort,for it behaves like a skeleton at the feast of all our enjoyments.We go to the theatre and laugh;but between the acts it raises a skinny finger at us.We rush violently for the last train,and while we are cooling a long age on the platform waiting for the last train,it promenades its bones up and down by our side and inquires:"O man,what hast thou done with thy youth?What art thou doing with thine age?"You may urge that this feeling of continuous looking forward,of aspiration,is part of life itself,and inseparable from life itself.True!