CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

IN WHICH I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE ENTIRELY SENTIMENTAL 255

_to_ GEORGE AND BLANCHE

FOREWORD

Twenty-five seems to me the latest age at which anybody should write an autobiography. It has an air of finality about it, as though one had clambered to the summit of a great hill, and were waving good-bye to some very distant country which can never be revisited.

A delicious age, you may agree, but an age too irresponsible for the production of autobiographies. Why, I ask you? The bones of a young man of twenty-five (according to the medical profession) are duly set, his teeth are ranged in their correct places, and many arid pastures have been made beautiful by the sowing of his wild oats. Why then, not write about some of the exciting people he has seen, while they still excite him?

That is the essence of the whole matter, to write of these things before it is too late. This is an age of boredom, and by the time one is thirty, I am terribly afraid that the first flush of enthusiasm may have worn off. It is quite possible that by then I shall no longer be thrilled by the sight of Arnold Bennett twisting his forelock at a first night, and that the vision of Elinor Glyn eating quantities of cold ham at the Bath Club (a sight which, to-day, never fails to amuse) will not move me in the least.

It is also possible that my indignations will have suffered a similar cooling, that I shall no longer feel faintly sick at the sight of the new Regent Street, and shall be able to view the idolization by the British people of Mr. George Robey, if not with approbation, at least with tolerance.

It is to be hoped that this will not be the case, but you must admit, from your own experience of young men who have grown up, that it is quite on the cards. They are faithless to their first hates, they have forgotten their first loves. They turn from the dreams of Oxford to the nightmares of the city, just because the dream is difficult, and the nightmare is so easy. In fact, they grow old.

That is why I have written this book. And from the decrepitude of thirty I shall write another on the same lines. It will be called ‘Making the Most of Twenty-Eight.’

B. N.