For I would here assume what I take to be generally the case, namely, that the boy or girl paying a first visit to the opera has no real idea as to what is in store for them; and the excitement of the first entry into the large and brilliant house, with its crowd of well-dressed people experienced, a series of miniature shocks awaits the novice, whom, for sake of example, we may take to be an averagely intelligent and musical girl of sixteen. [Sidenote: =The Language Difficulty=] It does not take her long to discover that she can understand the meaning of hardly any word sung on the stage; a word or two here and there may be caught and mentally translated, but hardly sufficient, unless the girl be specially conversant with French, Italian, or German to piece things connectedly together, or to gather enough to follow the sentiments expressed: a little natural irritation at not knowing what it is all about ensues. [Sidenote: =Why the Story is Hard to Follow=] The words not being caught, as they would in an ordinary play in the vernacular, it is difficult to follow the story which is being unfolded; an ordinary stage piece may be intelligently followed by a deaf person by means of the eye, but in opera, situations must develop more slowly owing to the musical setting, and there is generally, so far as stage work is concerned, a minimum of action; it is therefore quite possible for our young lady to leave the theatre with the very barest notion as to the plot of the opera she has witnessed. Should the work witnessed be of a very popular character, such as _Faust_, various numbers in the music will appeal to her ear as being pleasantly familiar; even in such a case as this, however, there will be much that falls strangely, while with the majority of works the music would be so new that only a confused general idea would be carried away. Not following either the language or the story, the music would be but another factor of confusion to our inexperienced girl, and especially would this be the case if the work presented were of a modern nature, or in a style to which she was quite unaccustomed in any phase of the art. Such, to my knowledge, are some of the feelings experienced by young people taken to the opera for the first time; first impressions are strong, and a feeling of distaste thus inculcated may be hard to eradicate. Before considering how such wrong impressions might be prevented, or at least modified, we must again consider briefly what we go to the opera to hear. [Sidenote: =What we go to the Opera to hear=]