It is strange to see so thoroughly studied a performance as this succeeded by so thoroughly unstudied a performance as the Mills Building, by the same architect. But possibly ten-story buildings, which must be built in a year, will not wait for architects to mature designs which would make the buildings of interest to students of architecture as well as to investors. Whatever the cause may be, the result is unfortunate; for after the grandiose and somewhat swaggering Roman gateway, and the portcullis which it encloses, have been taken out, the rest of the Mills Building may safely be thrown away. The portcullis is really an interesting piece of iron-work both in design and in workmanship, although in both it is distinctly inferior to such a piece of work as the nondescript beast in cast iron that performs the humble office of holding a sign in Cedar Street, and that might have been wrought in the thirteenth century, so grotesque, so skilful, so charged with the spirit of artistic and enjoyed handicraft it is. [See initial letter.] [Illustration: GATEWAY OF MILLS BUILDING. George B. Post, Architect.] So the new departure is still but a departure, and it seems time that such of the victims of it as are artists who take serious views of their art should ask themselves why they continue to work in a style which has never produced a monument, and in which it is impossible to discern any element of progress. In doing Queen Anne, have they done anything but follow a fashion set, as fashions in millinery and tailoring are set, by mere caprice? A professional journal has indeed declared that “architecture is very much a matter of fashion,” and architects who take this view of their calling will of course build in the fashion, as they dress in the fashion, in spite of their own knowledge that the fashion is absurd. But it is impossible to regard an architect who takes this view as other than a tradesman, or to discuss his works except by telling what are the latest modes, in the manner of the fashion magazines. It seems impossible for architects who take this view of their art to take their art seriously--anything like so seriously, for example, as they take their incomes. But for architects who love their art and believe in it, the point of “departure” is much less important than the point of arrival, and by such architects the historical styles of architecture will be rated according to the help they give in solving the architectural problems of our time. We have seen that an architect who starts from Renaissance architecture and an architect who starts from Gothic architecture, if they faithfully scrutinize their precedents, and faithfully discard such as are inapplicable, in arriving at free architecture will arrive, so far as style is concerned, at much the same result. If this process of analysis were to be carried on for a generation, it would be as difficult, and as purely a matter of