ntion and wonder are engaged, and a
new meaning and importance is added to such intrinsic beauty as
the presentation may possess.

_The expression of economy and fitness._

Sec. 54. The same principle explains the effect of evident cleanliness,
security, economy, and comfort. This Dutch charm hardly needs
explanation; we are conscious of the domesticity and neatness
which pleases us in it. There are few things more utterly
discomforting to our minds than waste: it is a sort of pungent
extract and quintessence of folly. The visible manifestation of it is
therefore very offensive; and that of its absence very reassuring.
The force of our approval of practical fitness and economy in
things rises into an appreciation that is half-aesthetic, and which
becomes wholly so when the fit form becomes fixed in a type, to
the lines of which we are accustomed; so that the practical
necessity of the form is heightened and concentrated into the
aesthetic propriety of it.

The much-praised expression of function and truth in architectural
works reduces itself to this principle. The useful contrivance at
first appeals to our practical approval; while we admire its
ingenuity, we cannot fail to become gradually accustomed to its
presence, and to register with attentive pleasure the relation of its
parts. Utility, as we have pointed out in its place, is thus the
guiding principle in the determination of forms.

The recurring observation of the utility, economy, and fitness of
the traditional arrangement in buildings or other products of art,
re-enforces this formal expectation with a reflective approval. We are
accustomed, for instance, to sloping roofs; the fact that they were
necessary has made them familiar, and the fact that they are
familiar has made them objects of study and of artistic enjoyment.
If at any moment, however, the notion of condemning them passes
through the mind, -- if we have visions of the balustrade against
the sky, -- we revert to our homely image with kindly loyalty,
when we remember the long months of rain and snow, and the
comfortless leaks to be avoided. The thought of a glaring, practical
unfitness is enough to spoil our pleasure in any form, however
beautiful intrinsically, while the sense of practical fitness is enough
to reconcile us to the most awkward and rude contrivances.

This principle is, indeed, not a fundamental, but an auxiliary one;
the expression of utility modifies effect, but does not co