The Geyers as far back as 1700 were simple pious folk, the first of the family being a certain Benjamin Geyer, who about 1700 was a trombone-player and organist. Indeed, the chief occupation of many Geyers was in some way or other connected with the Evangelical Church. Ludwig Heinrich Christian Geyer was a portraitist of no mean merit, an actor of considerable power--his Franz Moor was a favourite rôle with the public--a dramatist of fair ability (he wrote a tragedy, among others, named The Slaughter of the Innocents), and also a verse-maker. His acquaintance with Weber stimulated his interest in music; Weber discovered his voice, and he sang in opera. Truly a versatile man who displayed in miniature all the qualities of Wagner. The latter was too young at the time of Geyer's death, September, 1821, to have profited much by the precepts of his stepfather, but his example certainly did prove stimulating to the imagination of the budding poet and composer. Geyer married Johanna Wagner-Bertz (Mary Burrell was the first to give the correct spelling of her maiden name), the widow of the police functionary Wagner (to whose memory Richard pays such cynical homage in his obituary), August 14, 1814. She had about two hundred and sixty-one thalern, and eight children. A ninth came later in the person of Cäcile, who afterward married a member of the Avenarius family. Cäcile, or Cicely, was a prime favourite with Richard.
Seven years passed, and again Frau Geyer found herself a widow, with nine children and little money. How the family all tumbled up in the world, owing much to the courage, wit, vivacity, and unshaken will-power of their mother, may be found in the autobiography. Bournot admits that Geyer and his wife may have carried to the grave certain secrets. Richard Wagner until he was nine years old was known as Richard Geyer, and on page thirteen of his book our author prints the following significant sentence: "The possibility of Wagner's descent from Geyer contains in itself nothing detrimental to our judgment of the art-work of Baireuth."
In 1900 a twenty-page pamphlet bearing the title Richard Wagner in Zurich was published in Leipsic. It was signed Hans Bélart, and gave for the first time to a much mystified world the story of Wagner's passion for Mathilde Wesendonk, thus shattering beyond hope of repair our cherished belief that Cosima von Bülow-Liszt had been the lode-stone of Wagner's desire, that to her influence was due the creation of Tristan and Isolde, its composer's high-water mark in poetic, dramatic music. Now, Bélart, not content with his iconoclastic pamphlet, has just sent forth a fat book which he calls Richard Wagner's Love-Tragedy with Mathilde Wesendonk.