The Washington herald., 1915-08-09
Using Time.
~ JOHN ID. BARRY.

Do you ever think about the time you wastel
l suspect that you do Most of us do. With some
of US it is serious cause of depression. And ye
we go wasting time.
What is the reason? Doesn't it lie in most
cases to lack of regularity, of system?
In system there is a kind of magic
| Observe the way results pile up when you
faithfully follow system.
1t may not be wonderful. 1t may be ordinary
even inferior. Yet its regularity will do wonders
l know writer who makes it rule to write
one page of manuscript a day. The work seems
Very little. And yet he accomplishes big results.
He considers himself lazy man. In many
ways he is But he relies on the magic of system
1t seems actually to work for him. He often
speaks of it the greatest of all miracles. His
reverence for it makes him faithful to that one
page. No matter what may happen to him, no
matter how sick he may be, or how discouraged
or how tired, or how distracted with affairs he
writes that page.
once saw him working in his study while his
wife lay dead down stairs
Some people would think that he was heart
less. He not. He was showing the power of
habit
: | once stood with two men in front of long
row of books written by famous author. One
of them ran his finger along the row. 1t took
that finger some time to reach the last book.
How in the world can any do so much in
one lifetime" he asked in a tone of discourage
mcnt.
The other happened to know something
about that authors life. HE had a very easy
time" he said. HE never worked more than two
or three hours a day. He had system
But didn't his brain ever give out?" the man
asked resentfully.
Il suppose his brain got into the habit of
working. Brains generally do. That's one bless
cd thing about them. They like good habits. If
you don't overwork them and if you let them have
system, they'll do wonders"
Have you ever read Anthony Trolope's "Au-
tobiography:' 1t is a remarkable human docu-
ment the life of great man frankly narrated by
the man himself
1t happened that Anthony Trolope was a
writer. But that circumstance was unimportant.
He was pre-emincntly man.
Trollope devoted himself to the business of
authorship exactly as he might have devoted him
self to any other business He worked at writing
tor three hours each day, not very hard daily
stint, but it happened, he had another occu-
Il
He made up his mind to do his stint of writing
no matter what happened. Often he would write
on trains. He considered what writer's call wait
ing for inspiration" nonsense The result OF
his system was that he accomplished vast
amount OF work, but, by telling the truth about
his system he injured his reputation Wien his
Autobiography" was published after his death
lovers OF literature shocked, instead of being
impressed by his courage and industry They had
the old-fashioncd notion about writer's 1t still
persists, by the way. They liked to think of
writer's as "inspired' doing their work by
means OF divine agency
AS if we did not all do our work by divine
agency-no matter what the work may be-
But the divine agency insists on being backed
up with character, which means courage and per-
Sistencc, the qualities that make for system
In the autobiography" Anthony Trollope un-
lucstionably showed that he was not an inspira-
tional writer. and that he was a man inspired by
moral force
There were those who said that writing so pro-
duccd, by methods SO mechanical could not be
good. They showed that they did not understand
mental processes. Those methods of Trollope's
we're only apparently mechanical. The brain pro-
ccsses went on just they did when writers fol.
ow their moods.
The chances are that Trollope maintained as
high an average of work as he would have done
t he had waited for "inspiration." Moreover, he
accomplished at least ten times as much as he
would have done if he had allowed himself to be
4 slave OF "inspiration."
1t is waiting until we feel like working that is
he curse OF most of our lives
we forget that the more we do the more we
ire likely to feel like doing
There is inspiration far greater and far
more reliable than the impulse that comes from
waiting. 1t lies in working.