Time was when a fame-craving young man could earn a reputation for originality by merely going to the market-place and loudly proclaiming his disbelief in a deity. It would seem that modern critics of Richard Wagner, busily engaged in placing the life of the composer under their microscopes, are seeking the laurels of the ambitious chap aforesaid.

Never has the music of Wagner been more popular than now; his name on the opera billboards is bound to crowd a house. And never, paradoxical as it may sound, has there been such a critical hue and cry over his works and personality. The publication of his autobiography has much to do with this renewal of interest. There is some praise, much abuse, to be found in the newly published books on the subject. European critics are building up little islands of theory, coral-like, some with fantastic lagoons, others founded on stern truth, and many doomed to be washed away over-night. Nevertheless, the true Richard Wagner is beginning to emerge from the haze of Nibelheim behind which he contrived to hide his real self.

Wagner the gigantic comedian; Wagner the egotist; Wagner the victim of a tragic love, Wagner tone-poet, mock philosopher, and a wonderful apparition in the world of art till success overtook him; then Wagner become bored, with no more worlds to conquer, deserted by his best friends—whom he had alienated—without the solace of the men he had most loved, the men who had helped him over the thorny path of his life—Liszt, Nietzsche, Von BÜlow, Otto Wesendonk, and how many others, even King Ludwig II, whom he had treated with characteristic ingratitude! No, Richard Wagner during the sterile years, so called, from 1866 to 1883, was not a contented man, despite his union with Cosima von BÜlow-Liszt and the foundation of a home and family at Baireuth.

I

However, there are exceptions. One is the book of Otto Bournot entitled Ludwig Geyer, the Stepfather of Richard Wagner. I wrote about it in 1913 for the New York Times. In this slender volume of only seventy-two pages the author sifts all the evidence in the Geyer-Wagner question, and he has delved into archives, into the newspapers of Geyer's days, and has had access to hitherto untouched material. It must be admitted that his conclusions are not to be lightly denied. August BÖttiger's Necrology has until recently been the chief source of facts in the career of Geyer, but Wagner's Autobiography—which in spots Bournot corrects—and the life of Wagner by Mary Burrell, not to mention other books, have furnished Bournot with new weapons.

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."

II

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.

We had thought that the last word in the matter had been said when Baireuth (Queen Cosima I) allowed the publication of Wagner's diaries and love-letters to Mathilde—though her complete correspondence is as yet unpublished. But BÉlart is one of the busiest among the German critical coral builders. He has dug into musty newspapers and letters, and gives at the close of his work a long list of authorities. Yet nothing startlingly new comes out of his researches. We knew that Mathilde Wesendonk (or Wesendonck) was the first love of Wagner, a genuine and noble passion, not his usual self-seeking philandering. We also knew that Otto Wesendonk behaved like a patient husband and a gentleman—any other man would have put a bullet in the body of the thrice impertinent genius; knew, too, that Tristan and Isolde was born of this romance. But there is a mass of fresh details, petty backstairs gossip, all the tittle-tattle beloved of such writers, that in company with Julius Kapp's Wagner und die Frauen, makes BÉlart's new book a valuable one for reference. Kapp, who has written a life of Franz Liszt, goes BÉlart one better in hinting that the infatuated couple transformed their idealism into realism. BÉlart does not believe this; neither does Emil Ludwig, the latest critical commentator on Wagner. But neither critic gives the profoundest proof that the love of Richard and Mathilde was an exalted, platonic one, i. e., the proof psychologic. I firmly believe that if Mathilde Wesendonk had eloped with Wagner in 1858, as he begged her to do, Tristan and Isolde might not have been finished; at all events, the third act would not have been what it now is. A mighty longing is better for the birth of great art than facile happiness. For the first time in his selfish unhappy life Wagner realised Goethe's words of wisdom: "Renounce thou shalt; shalt renounce." It was a bitter sacrifice, but out of its bitter sweetness came the honey and moonlight of Tristan and Isolde. Wagner suffered, Mathilde suffered, Otto Wesendonk suffered, and last, but not least, Minna Wagner, the poor pawn in his married game, suffered to distraction. Let us begin with a quotation on the last page but three of BÉlart's book: "Remarked Otto Wesendonk to a friend: 'I have hunted Wagner from my threshold....'"

This was in August, 1858. Wagner first met the Wesendonks about 1852, three years after he had fled to Zurich from Dresden because of his participation in the uprising of 1849. (Wagner as amateur revolutionist!) Thanks to the request of his wife Mathilde, Otto Wesendonk furnished a little house on the hill near his splendid villa for the Wagners. First christened "Fafner's Repose," Wagner changed the title to the "Asyl," and for a time it was truly an asylum for this perturbed spirit.

But he must needs fall deeply in love with his charming and beautiful neighbour, a woman of intellectual and poetic gifts, and to the chagrin of her husband and of Wagner's faithful wife. The gossip in the neighbourhood was considerable, for the complete frankness of the infatuated ones was not the least curious part of the affair. Liszt knew of it, so did the Princess Layn-Wittgenstein. An immense amount of "snooping" was indulged in by interested lady friends of Minna Wagner. She has her apologists, and, judging from the letters she wrote at the time and afterward—several printed for the first time by Kapp and BÉlart—she took a lively hand in the general proceedings. Evidently she was tired of her good man's behaviour, and when he solemnly assured her that it was the master-passion of his life she didn't believe him. Naturally not. He had cried "wolf" too often; besides, Minna, like a practical person, viewed the possibility of a rupture with Otto Wesendonk as a distinct misfortune. Otto had not only advanced much money to Richard, but he paid twelve thousand francs for the scores of Rheingold and WalkÜre and for the complete performing rights. Afterward he sent both to King Ludwig II as a gift—but I doubt if he ever got a penny from his tenants for rent. He also defrayed the expenses of the Wagner concert at Zurich, a little item of nine thousand francs. Scandal and calumny invaded his home, the fair fame of his wife was threatened. No wonder the finale, long deferred, was stormy, even operatic.

The lady was much younger than her husband; she was born at the close of 1828, therefore Wagner's junior by fifteen years. She was a Luckemeyer, her mother a Stein; a cultured, sweet-natured woman, it is more than doubtful if she could have endured Wagner as a husband. She did a wise thing in resisting his prayers. Not only was her husband a bar to such a proceeding, but her children would have always prevented her thinking of a legal separation. All sorts of plans were in the air. When, in 1857, the American panic seriously threatened the prosperity of Otto Wesendonk, who had heavy business interests in New York, gossip averred that Frau Wesendonk would ask for a divorce; but the air cleared and matters resumed their old aspect. Minna Wagner's health, always poor, became worse. It was a case of exasperated nerves made worse by drugs. She daily made scenes at home and threatened to tell what she knew. That she knew much is evident from her correspondence with Frau Wilk. She said that Wagner had two hearts, but while he delighted in intellectual and emotional friendship with such a superior soul as Mathilde, he nevertheless would not forego the domestic comforts provided by Minna. Like many another genius, Wagner was bourgeois. Those intolerable dogs, the parrot, the coffee-drinking, the soft beds and solicitude about his underclothing, all were truly German; human-all-too-human.

In September, 1857, the newly married Von BÜlows paid the Wagners a visit, and as the guest-chamber of the cottage was occupied they took up temporary quarters at an inn, "The Raven" (Wotan's ravens!) Cosima, young, impressionable, turned her face to the wall and wept when Wagner played and sang for his friends the first and second acts of Siegfried. Even then she felt the "pull" of his magnetism, of his genius, and doubtless regretted having married the fussy, irritable Von BÜlow—who had gone down in the social scale in wedding a girl of dubious descent. (In Paris Liszt for many years was only a strolling gipsy piano-player to whom the Countess d'Agoult had "condescended.")

Mathilde Wesendonk entertained the Von BÜlows, who went away pleased with their reception, above all deeply impressed by the exiled Wagner. They so reported to Liszt, and Von BÜlow did more; as the scion of an old aristocratic family, he made many attempts to secure an amnesty for Wagner, as well as making propaganda for his music. Which favours Wagner, who was the very genius of ingratitude, repaid later.

In one point Herr Ludwig is absolutely correct: the composer was supported by his friends from 1849 to the year when King Ludwig intervened. The starvation talk was a part of the Wagner legend, even the Paris days were greatly exaggerated as to their black poverty. Wagner was always a spendthrift.

From November, 1857, to May, 1858, Wagner set to music the five poems of Mathilde, veritable sketches for Tristan. Early in September, 1857, the relations between Minna and Mathilde had become strained. Wagner accused his wife of abusing Mathilde in a vulgar manner; worse remained; he had sent a letter by the gardener to Frau Wesendonk and the jealous wife intercepted it, broke the seal, read the contents. To Wagner, this was the blackest of crimes; yet can you blame her? To be sure, she had no conception of her husband's genius. For her Rienzi was his only work. Had it not succeeded? So had TannhÄuser and Lohengrin, also The Flying Dutchman, but Rienzi was her darling. How often she begged him to write another opera of the same Wagnerian calibre he has not failed to tell us. Otto Wesendonk's wife she firmly believed was leading him into a quagmire. What theatre could ever produce The Ring? One thing, however, Minna did not do, as most writers on the subject say she did: she did not show the fatal letter to Wesendonk at the time, but only to Wagner. Later she made its meanings clear to the injured husband, which no doubt provoked the explosive phrase quoted above.

The youthful Karl Tausig, bearing credentials from Liszt, appeared on the scene in May, 1858, and the entire household was soon in an uproar. Luckily, Wagner had persuaded Minna to take a cold-water cure at a sanatorium some distance from Zurich, so he could handle the wild-eyed Tausig, whose volcanic piano performances at the age of sixteen made the mature composer both wonder and admire. Tausig smoked black cigars, a trait he imitated from Liszt, and almost lived on coffee. Here is a curious criticism of him made by Cosima Von BÜlow, who, it must be remembered, was both the daughter and wife of famous pianists. She said: "Tausig has no touch, no individuality; he is a caricature of Liszt." This, in the light of Tausig's subsequent artistic career, sounds almost comical; it also shows the intensely one-sided temperament of a remarkable woman, who banished from her life both von BÜlow and her father, Franz Liszt, when Wagner entered into her dreams. The fortitude she displayed after her Richard's death in 1883 was not tempered by any human feeling toward her father. His telegrams were unanswered. She denied herself to him. She became a BrÜnnhilde frozen into a symbol of intolerable grief.