"Never been to the opera? Ain't you fond of music?"
"Did you ever know a lady that wasn't?"
"Then you must go to the opera."
"But it is just because I fancy myself fond of music that I don't think I should like the opera."
"You can't hear such music anywhere else."
"But the antics of the singers, pretending to be in such furies of passion, yet modulating every note with the cunning of a carver in ivory, seems to me so preposterous! For surely song springs from a brooding over past feeling,—I do not mean lost feeling; never from present emotion."
"Ah! you would change your mind after having once been. I should strongly advise you to go, if only for once. You ought now, really."
"An artist's wife must do without such expensive amusements,—except her husband's pictures be very popular indeed. I might as well cry for the moon. The cost of a box at the opera for a single night would keep my little household for a fortnight."
"Ah, well! but you should see 'The Barber,'" he said.
"Perhaps if I could hear without seeing, I should like it better," I answered.