ABSTRACT
When the English build solely with a view to ornament, they almost always produce something hideous; witness so many palaces, arches, pillars, and other monstrosities which afflict our eyes. When they build for utility, they generally produce something eminently original, striking, and handsome. The cause of this lies in the genius for the adaptation of means to ends which distinguishes the English people. Give an Englishman a definite purpose to accomplish, and do not fetter him with rules of art wholly inapplicable to the case, and he will imagine something as new as the exigency; and rendered beautiful by that exact coincidence between the end and the means which affects the senses with the same sort of satisfaction the solution of a problem gives to the mind.
