"Perhaps he has some talent for music” said the sick man as he heard little RICHARD, then only seven years old, strumming a tune from Der Freyschutz on the  piano. It was Louis GEYER, his step-father; painter, author, and actor, then on his death-bed, thinking of the future, planning as dying men plan, and hitting the mark as they often hit it, quite at random. The child's vivid temperament and eager, sensitive mind had always made him a favourite with the actor and the poet, and he thought of making a painter of RICHARD, but the boy seemed to have no turn for it. His mother, a woman full of life and imagination, was less anxious and more wise. She let him grow, and happily he was left to her, "with no education" as he says, "but life, art, and myself."