You who have heard _Cari fior_ upon the hand-organs in the street, and have whistled the _Soldiers' Chorus_ while you were in school; who have even grown to regard the opera of _Faust_ as old-fashioned and of light weight, must re-focus your glass a bit and look at Gounod's masterpiece from the point of view of nearly fifty years ago! It was just as startling, just as strange, just as antagonistic to our established musical habit as Strauss and Debussy and Dukas are to some persons to-day. What is new must always be strange, and what is strange must, except to a few adventurous souls, prove to be disturbing and, hence, disagreeable. People say "it is different, therefore it must be wrong." Even as battle, murder, and sudden death are upsetting to our lives, so Gounod's bold harmonies, sweeping airs, and curious orchestration were upsetting to the public ears. Not the public alone, either. Though from the first I was attracted and fascinated by the "new music," it puzzled me vastly. Also, I found it very difficult to sing. I, who had been accustomed to Linda and Gilda and Martha, felt utterly at sea when I tried to sing what at that time seemed to me the remarkable intervals of this strange, new, operatic heroine, Marguerite. In the simple Italian school one knew approximately what was ahead. A _recitative_ was a fairly elementary affair. An _aria_ had no unexpected cadences, led to no striking nor unusual effects. But in _Faust_ the musical intelligence had an entirely new task and was exercised quite differently from in anything that had gone before. This sequence of notes was a new and unlearned language to me, which I had to master before I could find freedom or ease. But when once mastered, how the music enchanted me; how it satisfied a thirst that had never been satisfied by Donizetti or Bellini! Musically, I loved the part of Marguerite--and I still love it. Dramatically, I confess to some impatience over the imbecility of the girl. From the first I summarily apostrophised her to myself as "a little fool!" Stupidity is really the keynote of Marguerite's character. She was not quite a peasant--she and her brother owned their house, showing that they belonged to the stolid, sound, sheltered burgher class. On the other hand, she explicitly states to Faust that she is "not a lady and needs no escort." In short, she was the ideal victim and was selected as such by Mephistopheles who, whatever else he may have been, was a judge of character. Marguerite was an easy dupe. She was entirely without resisting power. She was dull, and sweet, and open to flattery. She liked pretty things, with no more discrimination or taste than other girls. She was a well-brought-up but uneducated young person of an ignorant age and of a stupid class, and innocent to the verge of idiocy.