Twenty-five [antikvár]

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 hiU, 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. ix