Readers may at once make use of the information already acquired by seeing how these rules apply to their own lamps, candlesticks, pieces of furniture, etc.
The next view (Fig. 7) shows incidentally how much better it is under all circumstances to mark with fillets and lines the changes from one curve to another, for you certainly see how much more substantial character and beauty has _B_ than _A_.
Finally, let it be said, and said emphatically, that though there are profiles which require the use of the compass to draw them, and though all architectural details must be worked out with mathematical accuracy, those profiles and outlines are the most beautiful where it is evident that artistic skill governing a free hand has controlled and where mechanical assistance is so subordinate as to be overlooked.
There is very little to be said about surfaces or forms of two dimensions. The principal requirement is that outlines should be agreeable and must be well defined. In fact, the two qualities are inseparable, for a well-defined outline is agreeable and a badly defined one is sure to be disagreeable. By well-defined is meant that its particular shape should easily appear and be clearly distinguishable. For instance, a square should appear with sides distinctly equal; a circle should have but one center. In an architectural opening either arch or entablature should prevail, and the character of the arch should be evident. In the examples presented (Fig. 8) in the view these principles are violated. The first figure is so clearly a square that at first, and before you have examined it closely, you think it is a square. It leaves an indefinite and consequently disagreeable impression. The same criticism applies to the second object, apparently a mirror. The glass is round, but the frame is so irregular that the impress of the circle is destroyed, and there is left an undecided and therefore uncomfortable sensation. In the third example the arch is so poorly defined and so weak, while the entablature above it is so strong and so prominent, that the result is a composition that fails to give pleasure, because no distinct idea is conveyed. In the last example the outlines of the arch are so indefinite that its character is indistinguishable. You can not see which prevails, the round arch or the pointed arch.