Quote 28
I did not cry then or ever about Finny. I did not cry even when I stood watching him being lowered into his family's strait-laced burial ground outside of Boston. I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case (12.70).
If Gene did in some way become a part of Phineas, then part of Finny lives on in Gene. The narrator alludes to this when he says that he still lives his life in Finny's created "atmosphere."
Quote 29
"We'd better hurry or we'll be late for dinner," I said, breaking into what Finny called my "West Point stride." Phineas didn't really dislike West Point in particular or authority in general, but just considered authority the necessary evil against which happiness was achieved by reaction, the backboard which returned all the insults he threw at it (1.46).
Right away, Gene paints a portrait of Finny that pits him against the authority that will later take over in the Winter Session at Devon. But the fight is a friendly, sporting one – that's how Finny competes.
Quote 30
We met every night, because Finny's life was ruled by inspiration and anarchy, and so he prized a set of rules. His own, not those imposed on him by other people, such as the faculty of the Devon school. […] We met every night. Nothing could be more regular than that. To meet once a week seemed to him much less regular, entirely too haphazard, bordering on carelessness (3.4).
Finny's own "set of rules" comes to increasingly govern Gene's outlook and behavior as the novel continues. Even after Finny's death, Gene continues to live by these principles.