Youth is terrible: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and a varietyek of costumes mouthing speeches they‘ve memorized and fanatically Believe but only half understand. And history is terrible because it so-often ends up a playground for the immature; a playground for the young Nero, a playground for the young Bonaparte, a playground for-easily roused mobs of children whose simulated passions and simplisticposes suddenly metamorphose into a catastrophically real reality.
When I think of all this, my whole set of values goes awry and I feel a deep hatred towards youth, coupled with a certain paradoxical indulgence towards the criminals of history. (p. 87)