It may be mentioned as illustrating still further, the false tendencies in music, that it takes a brave man to ask for a sweet, simple song. I tried it the other night. I asked a Flora McFlimsey to give us "Way down upon the Swanee River." The words, it will be remembered, are singularly pure, sweet and pathetic. Many of the Italian songs just now so fashionable, are couched in language, listened to by pure-minded people, only because they don't understand it. When I said, "Please sing 'Way down upon the Swanee River,'" Miss McFlimsey replied, "Excuse me, I never sing that class of music. I haven't sung one of those simple airs, I don't know when." I know, by the way the girls looked at me, that their respect for my musical taste vanished at once and forever. If I had asked her for "Ah, que j'aime les militaire," or "Une Paule sur la mur," insufferable trash, both as to music and words, utterly beneath contempt, she would have eagerly screamed the bald bosh, and the weak ones would have declared it ineffably exquisite.* ITALIAN OPERA. If you understand Italian, I need not explain; and if you do not, purchase a libretto, with English translation, of almost any of the operas, and read. Among those most popular on the American stage, I cannot recall more than two, that I should be willing to have my daughter read. But the music pupil must study every word, often every syllable of a word. The lascivious suggestion, the sly innuendo, the bold challenge,-- they are all exhausted in the language of the opera. One of the charms of much of this class of music is similar to that of a new dance introduced into this country last winter; and it came, too, from the land of Italian opera. Of this dance I will only say that I overheard a buxom lass telling her lady friends "that the new dance was perfectly glorious; but," said she, "it's of no use to put flowers or bows in your bosom, for they get pressed flat enough, long before the first dance is over." Is it not a simple fact that operatic songs are popular just in proportion as they are indelicate? I have asked this question of more than a score of devotees of the opera. Half of them, perhaps, have said yes, the other half have said that the finest music happened to be associated with naughty words. Read the words of "Un mari sage" without the music. Where, outside of a brothel, could there be found a company of girls, who, with men present, would keep their faces uncovered, and listen. I wish you would go to the opera with me; I will show you something which will impress you more deeply than any words I can write. Here we are, so placed, that we can look into the faces of a part of the audience. Let us select a couple, and, with our glasses, watch them.