"It's Too Late Now"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24254, 23 March 1940, Page 4

"It's Too Late Now"

It's Too Late Now. By A. When autobiographies come—and they almost invariably do—they enrich and impoverish us at one and the same time. We are enriched by a varying wealth of detail; we are mulcted of our preconceived notions. We always thought of Mr Milne as " nice," but of his superabundant niceness we had but a poor computation. We knew about the preparatory school at Westgate-on-Sea, of the editing of the Granta at Cambridge, of the year's free-lancing in London, of the period in the army and of the inditing of a play for his' regiment. We knew of the happy conjunction between Irene Vanbrugh and the young dramatist, of " Belinda " and "Mr Pym Passes By." What we knew not of was the affinity between Alan and " de-.tr old Ken." his brother

an idyll which began with Lord Fauntleroy suits and long golden curls, and was continued on to the tete a tete with briar and tobacco. What a brother! And what a papa! H. G. Wells was on the staff of the school conducted by Milne pere before the latter went to Westgate-on-sea. Instinctively one compares Milne's papa with the father of Remington in "The New Machiavelli." The placings are Milne first, Remington second. In "The Georgian Literary Scene," Frank Swinnerton writes that Mr Milne is not persona grata with the later generation because he is a faithful husband, an exsmiJiary father, and an upholder of all that is connoted by the phrase "Play the game." Alan Milne

Autobiography of A. A. Milne

A. Milne (Methuen) 13s 6d. has played it consistently from his youth up. Perhaps the most interesting portion of this chronicle is concerned with small beginnings as a free lance. We share with Mr Milne his thrill on picking up the copy of Vanity Fair in the lounge of " dear old Ken's" hotel or club, and discovering therein his parody of Conan Doyle's resuscitation of Holmes and Moriarty Promise is always more exhilarating than fulfilment. The truth that Elia uttered in this matter applies no less to Mr Milne than to Mr Wells, who since the appearance of the "Autobiography," seem to have submerged himself in his own verbosity. Let us hope that a similar nemesis does not await Mr Milne. It is interesting to reflect that it was after the failure of "Success" at the Haymarket that Mr Milne returned like a prodigal to the pages of Puncn and contributed some of the "Christopher Robin " verses which were to place him beyond the dream; of avarice for the rest of his life. As a dramatist Mr Milne suffered from being a contemporary of Barrie, who remarked of Blades in " The Truth About Blades " that he should not have disappeared at the end of the first act. Mr Milne suffers in comparison with A. P. Herbert by reason of that niceness which seems to have beset him from his earliest days. He tells us how he tried to write down to a paper of the baser sort controlled by Alfred Harmsworth. who was a pupil at the school of Milne pere, and how he tore up the attempt with a sigh of relief. Since then, he declares, he has written nothing save for his own pleasure. He does not record that a star danced when he was born, but the good stars seem to have met in his horoscope. And yet . . and yet. ... One is curiously conscious of a craving for the Super-tramp of W. H. Davies, or " The Journal of a Disappointed Man," as one comes to the end of his placid account of a life which seems to have little by way of the cross grain until 1914. In "Peace With Honour" Mr Milne has written about the Great War. and he devotes but 15 pages to it here. Though he wrote "The Ivory Tower," he will certainly not be accused of escapist tendencies. To sum up, A. A. Milne reveals himself in this, his apologia, as a human being with a fine caoacity for enjoyment. There is nothing Pateresque about his epicureanism. If Barrie. his master in some respects, had placed him in Lob's wood, he would emerge as he had entered it, with fewer regrets, one imagines, than would many of his contemporaries. C. R. A.