Father of Genius

I think your birth was the first great event in my life. I was as surprised as if I had seen a house built up in the nighttime by magic. I developed an instantaneous ... [jealousy? hatred?] for the professional nurse. I could not bear to see you lying on her knees. I was for the first time – I suppose – pure animal. I never felt like that afterwards at the birth of the others.

John Butler Yeats to his son, qtd. in R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: A Life 1. The Apprentice Mage 15