always take care to adorn whatever we do adorn with representations of things having in themselves a palpable element of utility, and avoid all representation of whatever is utterly useless? Why is it that our ceilings, our carpets, our curtains, our mirror-frames, our cabinets, our porches, bridges, churches, cathedrals, &c., &c., are covered with representations of buds, and flowers, and verdure, and plants, and birds, and insects--things confessedly useful in a certain degree-and not with representations of thistles, nettles, brambles, eggshells, corks, fruit-stones, broken bottles, worn-out boots and hats, rotten leaves, withered flowers, dead plants, bits of paper, old iron, or other things confessedly worthless or contemptible? The only answer is, that beauty cannot exist apart from utility. Indeed, it is the futile shifts and struggles that have been made to reach beauty pure and simple, those affected efforts to evoke admiration by something totally disconnected with utility, which have led many to question or deny the phenomenon of beauty altogether. Beauty and utility can only exist as they co-exist. Once, therefore, let utility cease, and beauty ceases too; once let beauty be pushed forward till it outstrips utility, and it will inevitably collapse and turn contemptible. The experiment has often been tried unwittingly, and though at first it may succeed with a simple soul, a little time or a little education will quickly dispel such admiration, and the performance will be pronounced a wasteful and ridiculous success-bad as to gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow."

The same line of argument may be applied to shape. A serpentine line is beautiful when its utility is obvious, otherwise it is either indifferent or absurd. The curvature in the human spinal column is beautiful because it prevents the head and shoulders from jolting on the lower vertebræ, and so causing pain when we walk or run or jump; but a serpentine pillar supporting a porch, where neither motion nor feeling is involved and no purpose

served, would be manifestly preposterous. The vibrations made by sound are very admirable when registered on smoked glass, because they teach us how sound does its work, but if we were to write our letters in wavy lines and strokes the effect would be ludicrous. A road passing through a hilly country or an interesting locality may wind about and turn and double with much advantage, if by so doing it avoid a river, or a precipice, or a rock, or a mountain, or if it yield us a glimpse of the landscape or a view of a castle which would otherwise have been missed; such reasons account with eloquence for the digression, and make the crookedness seem beautiful. On a flat plain or level moorland, across a desert or sandy tract, where nothing could be gained by angles or divergence, the road must be straight, any winding, twisting, or meandering, however conformable to the "line of beauty," however mathematically proportioned, would in such a case be both ugly and pernicious. A spiral form is very pretty in a creeper, a corkscrew, or a spring, because there its utility is palpable; in a crutch, a candle, or a fishing-rod it would be hideous, because there its inutility would be palpable. So a bell-handle, a doorhandle, a billiard-ball, piano-notes, may be beautiful if smooth; a sword-handle, a moss-rose, a peach-stone, on the other hand, to be beautiful must be rough. Mats and brushes that were as smooth as tables and mirrors would be as unbearable as tables and mirrors that were as rough as mats and brushes. The beauty of a silk pocket-handkerchief is enhanced by its fineness and smoothness, the beauty of a bathing-towel by its roughness and coarseness. A basket may be admired though it may be full of holes and unevenness, qualities which would render an umbrella, a sail, or a target contemptible. The outer or upper side of leaves which hang down, to be beautiful ought to be smoother than the under side, which may be beautiful though rough; for the upper side receives the rain and should allow it to run off and not remain to

rot the foliage. A mantelpiece or a desk may look well if smooth and even, a slanting pavement may be comely if rough and rasping. Utility is in all such cases the arbiter of beauty and of admiration. Thousands of examples might be given, but it must suffice to adduce the foregoing as illustrations of a principle which will be found to be universal.

Now it must not be concluded that if the principle were violated in the above examples-if, for instance, roughness and smoothness should improperly change places, the various articles would become ugly in the one case because they were rough, and in the other case because they were smooth; for roughness and smoothness are sensations merely, and cannot by themselves be ugly or beautiful. Roughness, as we have seen, has in some things as much to do with admiration as smoothness has in other things. The real reason why a violation of the rule would induce disgust is that we should by such a violation sacrifice utility to beauty without making the beauty a whit greater. This being the case, we are grieved at the folly which diminishes what is tangibly valuable without enhancing what is ideally admirable. If mere smoothness were beautiful in one thing it would be beautiful in all things, and equally potent to call forth our admiration. A looking-glass is smooth and beautiful, smoothness being an element of its utility; a door-mat is rough and may be beautiful, its roughness being an element of its utility: make the mat as smooth as the mirror, and you make it so much the uglier. In those things, on the other hand, which owe nothing to the nature of their surface, it is a matter of indifference whether they are smooth or rough a hat, an overcoat, a ceiling, a watch-face, the bark of a tree, the cover of a book, may be equally beautiful whether rough or smooth. We are fonder, however, of a smooth surface than a rough one, because the sensation it causes is more pleasant, so that where utility is equally balanced we generally adopt the smooth. So much for shape and figure.

The same line of argument may be applied to motion, and a few illustrations will suffice to show that here also a sacrifice of utility involves a sacrifice of beauty, and consequently of admiration. If waving, curving, serpentine motions were beautiful in themselves, they would exact our admiration wherever they occurred. That such motions are sometimes the occasion of admiration is indisputable, but it will be found that in all cases where they are they assist utility; and if any utility be sacrificed to secure such motions, our admiration ceases and our contempt begins.

The motions of the human body, for example, are almost all circular or waving; every limb moves in a circle whose centre is the articulation, and whose radius is the length of the limb. The arms oscillate and the legs swing in circles or segments of circles. The eyes and the head are spherical, and revolve ball-and-socket-wise. The jaw moves up and down like the lid of a box or the leaf of a table. We cannot even draw a straight line without describing part of a circle, either with the fingers, the forearm, the upper arm, or else with the legs or some other portion of the body; even when we shoot out our tongue, the root or back portion moves circularly. We walk in waves, and if we try to do otherwise we shuffle and make ourselves ridiculous. If a pencil were so affixed to the head that its point projected out sideways over one shoulder so as to touch a wall or screen, this pencil, if we were to walk along parallel to the wall, would register our movements by a wavy or undulating line. Now this line, call it the "line of beauty," or the "line of grace," or what you will, is undoubtedly the line of utility. When we stand upon the ground with both our feet together, we are at our greatest natural height; if we separate our legs, either laterally or longitudinally, we bring ourselves down below our full height; and in closing our legs again we regain our height. Now this is precisely what takes place in walking. When one leg is projected in front and both feet touch the ground, heel and toe, we are at the

nadir of our curving line. In advancing to project the other leg, we must first bring it up to the front one, and when, in passing, the two are parallel, we are at the zenith of the arch; and as we continue the projection we begin to descend again, and so on. This movement is graceful and its advantage is evident. If, however, we were to compel vehicles, carts, trains, tramways, to imitate such motion, and for that purpose were to construct the roads and lay rails in an undulating manner, the effect would be as bad as could be; not that the mere motion would be graceful in the one case and the reverse in the other, but because in the first the utility would be free and complete, while in the second it would be gratuitously sacrificed. A train is intended to convey its passengers with as much rapidity and as much safety as possible to its journey's end, and if either or both of these objects be sacrificed without a valid return, the proceeding can only provoke condemnation and disgust.

Skating is a graceful movement, and in its curves and counter-curves the "line of grace" has unlimited play. When a skater wants to cross a pond, the herring-bone step is his fastest mode, and it is certainly a very comely movement; but what would be thought of the man who should transfer this movement to the street, and go along the pathway curveting about from one side to the other? By sacrificing utility to grace-in other words to nothing -he would probably be thought worthy of apartments in a lunatic asylum. Waltzing is a graceful movement, but athletes who should introduce it into the racecourse and keep turning round while running a race would not be at all admired. The serpentine movement of an eel or the bound of a kangaroo may be admired, but a hound that followed a hare by lateral undulatory movements would provoke annoyance and chastisement, or be shot as a worthless animal. The movements of a rider and of graceful, but they are very different from each other. There is a peculiar movement

a rower may both be