“Oh, father!” exclaimed Franz.
But his father’s words and tone had, as in a flash of light, suddenly revealed the real feeling in his heart: he was jealous, and his son perceived it.
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.
This much is to be said for fathers who object to their sons following their own careers: the struggles by which they have won their way, the sorrows which have been forced upon them, the dangers they have escaped—these are all so vividly present to their minds, that they believe them inseparable from the career. Who shall say that another will escape these perils? All the delight, all the rapture of hope and of success are forgotten, or else weigh but as a feather in the scale against these perils. A father says:—
“It is true I escaped; but I was fortunate. Besides, I had genius,—I had rectitude,—I had strength of will. My poor boy, (and fathers are apt to look with a sort of compassion on their children: is it because the children have, from infancy upwards, looked to them for pity and protection?)—my poor boy will not be able to buffet with the world as I did! He will be led away by temptations; he will succumb beneath adversity!”
In proportion to the precariousness of the profession is the reluctance of the parent. Poets never wish their sons to be poets; certainly not to trust to poetry for their livelihood. Nor do artists desire their sons to be artists. Actors almost universally shudder at the idea of their children becoming actors.
So that Schoenlein’s remonstrances would have been vehement, even had he not been tormented with jealousy. But, from the moment Franz perceived the real state of his father’s mind, all compunction vanished. No arguments could have made him quit the stage; but now he felt his father’s arguments to be insults.