POSSESSIVE PAPA

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 26

POSSESSIVE PAPA

) We1-often; haye1 stories of the "posi sessive" : mother; less frequently dc ■we hear' of the "possessive" father, the man who "knows" how each oi his children must be brought up and 1 sets out to shape their careers in accordance with his theories. The blustering barrister of Miss Goolden't new story, "Morning Tells the Day,'j likes to believe "that. he. is giving- his four children—three girls and a boy —full freedom, but his idea of freedom' is hardly theirs, and' the results of his successful domination are not precisely those for which he - could have. wished., ■■■:.■■■"■: ;■"'.'.To him the girls'; "do riot-matter bo much as the boy.- If,, for ..instance, Lettice chooses-to go off and live-with ah old nurse, painting her silly pictures -instead of- looking -for a husband, she has only herself to blame for what'happens. But it is different with Anthony, Much the youngest of the four, who must never be sent to a boarding-school but learn to be a man. of the world like his father.' Anthony dutifully .bows to - the tyrant, and ' yet ';-..■ another • spineless fellow makes.his appearance. . "Morning Tells the Day" is a good example of Miss Goolden's work— tender,- shrewd,« and ■ sensitively written. As usual, the dialogue is excellent,: and ' in her portrait of Anthony as a small child she excels' herself; Is it a likeable story, and not ite least attractive scene is that in which the barrister, after half a life-time of bullying his own children, finds himself completely defeated by a small grandchild.