t with imaginative
functions. Modern engineering works often have a similar value; the
force and intelligence they express merge in an aesthetic essence, and
the place they hold in a portentous civilisation lends them an almost
epic dignity. New York, since it took to doing business in towers, has
become interesting to look at from the sea; nor is it possible to walk
through the overshadowed streets without feeling a pleasing wonder. A
city, when enough people swarm in it, is as fascinating as an ant-hill,
and its buildings, whatever other charms they may have, are at least as
curious and delightful as sea-shells or birds' nests. The purpose of
improvements in modern structures may be economic, just as the purpose
of castles was military; but both may incidentally please the
contemplative mind by their huge forms and human associations.

[Sidenote: Approach to beauty through useful structure.]

Of the two approaches which barbaric architecture makes to beauty--one
through ornamentation and the other through mass--the latter is in
general the more successful. An engineer fights with nature hand to
hand: he is less easily extravagant than a decorator; he can hardly ever
afford to be absurd. He becomes accordingly more rapidly civilised and
his work acquires, in spite of itself, more rationality and a more
permanent charm. A self-sustaining structure, in art as in life, is the
only possible basis for a vital ideal. When the framework is determined,
when it is tested by trial and found to stand and serve, it will
gradually ingratiate itself with the observer; affinities it may have in
his memory or apperceptive habits will come to light; they will help him
to assimilate the new vision and will define its aesthetic character.
Whatever beauty its lines may have will become a permanent possession
and whatever beauties they exclude will be rejected by a faithful
artist, no matter how sorely at first they may tempt him. Not that these
excluded beauties would not be really beautiful; like fashions, they
would truly please in their day and very likely would contain certain
absolute excellences of form or feeling which an attentive eye could
enjoy at any time. Yet if appended to a structure they have no function
in, these excellences will hardly impose themselves on the next builder.
Being adventitious they will remain optional, and since fancy is quick,
and exotic beauties are many, there will be no end to the variations, in
endl