A multiplicity of columns and entablatures does not make perfect architecture, but great leading lines, good proportion, clear detail, and appropriate ornament. The guiding rule is to do nothing which has not intrinsic merit. It is better to have an absolutely plain wall than one covered with poor decoration; far better to have no cornice at all than a galvanized iron one, painted to look like stone. The true definition of architecture is “ornamental construction.” It is not a utilitarian science, because if so there would be no _raison d’être_ for beauty of design, for mere shelter and commodious arrangement could as well be provided by the engineer as by the architect. The art of the architect lies in the composition of buildings at once suited to their purpose and beautiful to the eye; and as such his art is one that can progress, not through a series of changing fashions which grow wearisome before they have lasted a decade, but step by step, according to the example of the great periods of the past. This example teaches us never to copy slavishly, but to imitate old examples only so far as they may suit modern needs, in principle rather than in detail, and to eschew the reproduction of defects, however picturesque, so that architecture may be a living art instead of the mummified representation of archæological researches. In pursuing the study of so vast and splendid an art we should do so with some feeling of reverence for its dignity, not looking upon it as a mere money-making trade, for the greatest architects the world has known have been satisfied in being only worshippers at a great shrine. Reverence is a sentiment slightly regarded in an age when delicacy of feeling in such matters is often held up as a butt for the jests and derision of the vulgar, and the dignity of the art has little foothold when it has become a custom for the vendor of cheap furniture to style his shop an “Art Repository,” and the founder of cast-iron abortions to call his factory “The Art Metal Works.” Nevertheless all of our work must reflect something of our inner thoughts, and if we do not place them upon a high plane it is not possible for their reflection to contain what is noble and true. We cannot become artists in the true sense of the word without loving and reverencing the beauty and principles which have made the art so great a one. It is the custom among certain people to sneer at sentiment, and call for practical art; but the most practical art is essentially the product of thoughtful sentiments.