T w o different kind s o f fathe r
'Jenny he isn't going to be President of the USA, after all!'
We were driving back to Harvard.
'You still weren't very nice to him about it, Oliver.'
'I said "Well done"!'
'Ha! Oliver, why are you so unkind to your father? You
hurt him all the time.'
'It's impossible to hurt Oliver Barrett the Third.'
'No, it isn't - if you marry Jennifer Cavilled . . . Oliver,
I know you love me. But in a strange way you want me
because I'm not a suitable woman for a Barrett to marry.
You are rebelling against your father.'
My father said the same thing a few days later when we
had lunch together at the Harvard Club in Boston.
'Son, you're in too much of a hurry. The young lady
herself is fine. The problem is you. You are rebelling, and
you know it.'
'Father, what worries you most about her? That she's
Italian? Or that she's poor?'
'What do you like most about her?'
'I'm leaving.'
'Stay and talk like a man.' I stayed. Old Stonyface liked
that. He's won again, I thought angrily.
'Wait a while, son,' Oliver Barrett the Third continued.
'That's all I ask. Finish law school.'
'Why do I have to wait?' I was rebelling now.