Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/132



," I said after a moment of intense meditation, "I think—I am not sure, but I think you are making a mistake."

"I am sure!" she retorted. "I am not making a mistake. I know perfectly well what I am doing. I have never been more certain about anything in my life than that Oliver is wrong—utterly wrong. What mistake am I making?"

"You are making the mistake which nine tenths of the good people of our generation are making in dealing with their own children. You are making the mistake of trying to suppress the symptoms instead of diagnosing the disease. Knickers and the rest are symptoms. Of what? You ought to be thinking about that, but you are not. Cigarettes and bobbed hair are flags of revolt. You are interested only in capturing the flags and burning them. But what is the revolt about? That is what you ought to be thinking about; and you aren't thinking about it at all."

"I am thinking about it," she protested. "I am thinking about nothing else. I am not a