My natural laziness and the unwonted amenities of my mode of living at the time – in that garden-home in Surrey – combined to create a pleasantly drowsy, slightly confused, static frame of mind, and kept from me all disturbing thoughts of self-development, of self-criticism. The indolence of the so-called awkward age, 'l’age ingrate' (with more than its share of puppy loves), was, I suppose, aggravated in my case by the many regressive factors in a “boy-violinist’s” life. The constant grinding out of the same obsolete salon pieces by Sarasate, Hubay, and Wieniawski, which seemed to serve their purpose well at these Ballad Concerts and Park Lane musicales and on provincial tours, was a significant regressive factor, and so was the desirability- expressed tacitly all around me- of “retarding” the moment of passing from the status of “boy-violinist” to the unglamorous one of adult musician. << less