Surely it was not shirking to lay out such a programme for myself.

I had boundless faith in my future.

I was certainly going to be a great poet; I was certainly going to take care of the family.
Thus mused I, in my arrogance.

And my family?
They were as bad as I.
My father had not lost a whit of his ambition for me.

Since Graduation Day, and the school-committeeman's speech, and half a column about me in the paper, his ambition had soared even higher.