Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

I have frittered away the better part of my life. I did it all backways, starting out an achiever and then drifting into vagueness and crippling indecision. Now, becalmed in the midst of my decidedly unroaring forties, I feel I have entered already if not my second childhood then certainly my second adolescence - look at all this love stuff, this gonadal simpering and sighing; I shall break out in a rash of pimples yet.