Do not, however, suppose that the old man was aware of this feeling; he would have shuddered at the accusation. Blinding himself with all sorts of sophistications, he attributed his horror at Franz’s adoption of the stage to his very sincere disgust to that profession; and because he really did in his own person feel an actor’s life was disgraceful, even sinful, he fancied his objection to Franz’s being an actor was wholly derived from that feeling. But in the depths of his heart he was horribly jealous. He had learned to hate Franz as a rival, before he knew him to be his son. Critics had maddened him by their comparisons. Franz had been pointed out as the actor who was to eclipse him. And now that he found Franz was his son, instead of rejoicing in his success, instead of feeling proud that at any rate his rival was his son, and that the genius which dethroned him was derived from himself—instead of the consolation which another father would have received, he was assailed by the bitterest thoughts at the idea of his son being an actor! He was incensed at such disobedience, at such violation of all his wishes; and attributed to his anger all he really felt of jealousy. There is something so painful in the idea of a father being jealous of his son, that many will be tempted to pronounce it impossible. Rare it fortunately is, but not impossible. Who has not known women jealous of their daughters: women preserving their beauty, and followed by homage, till their girls are old enough to dispute and bear away the palm from them? If this is not uncommon—and more than one instance must occur within every reader’s experience—what is to prevent the same principle applying in a man’s case? You have only to imagine the vanity pampered by flattery into an unhealthy condition, and then bring in a rival—no matter whom—and the thing is done. Either the father’s vanity will be caressed by the reflection of the child’s success, (and this, happily, is the commoner case,) or it will be irritated at the child’s interference with its claims. In Schoenlein’s case must be added the strange but intense dislike with which he regarded the profession of an actor. Had there been no rivalry in the case, had Franz been only a tolerable actor, he would still have been excessively irritated. But for his son to be an actor, and for the public to prefer him as an actor to his father—this was agonising! He grew eloquent in his exhortations. Finding it was in vain to make Franz share his religious opinions, he endeavoured to dissuade him by painting all the dangers of the profession—its pangs, its weariness, its disappointments—painted the disagreeable ordeal he himself had been forced to undergo; and speaking, as he thought, to accomplish his son’s welfare, he was eloquent.