The Beauty of Machine-made Things 
fectlv true to any curve which man 
can design.” “ Then you think if 
design were based on the fundamental 
principles of art, you could execute 
them?” Answer: “Without a 
doubt. I make ugly things only be¬ 
cause I am forced to carry out ugly 
designs which get their character from 
ugly, intricate, and complicated lines, 
and grotesque ornament which 1 can¬ 
not make. I can work only according 
?o the laws of my nature.” 
Art is called back to the stand in 
rebuttal. But she must admit that a 
machine can do perfectly all that it 
claims, viz. : cut straight and curved 
lines. At the same time Art points 
with contempt at every object in the 
court room, and declares all these to 
be the work of the machine. “These 
hideous chairs,” she says, “ on which 
we are sitting, that lawyer’s table with 
its bunchy legs, those ugly mould¬ 
ings; in fact, nearly all the furniture, 
carpets, and household decoration, 
loaded with pretentious ornament and 
ostentatious vulgarity, these have all 
been made by you, machine; you have filled 
the world with the tawdry, the gew-gaw and 
the sham, and in this way you have starved 
to death many of my devoted followers.” 
Hereupon the machine declares : “ 1 am 
not to blame for the widespread ugliness of 
manufactured articles ! The manufacturer, 
MUSIC-ROOM FURNITURE DESIGNED TO BE 
EXECUTED BY MACHINERY 
A ROOM FURNISHED WITH OBJECTS 
DESIGNED TO BE EXECUTED BY MACHINERY 
The curtains , rug and upholstery contain three colors only 
my master, forces me to carry out the hideous 
design of the incompetent. Why, from such 
designs, the objects would have been ugly 
though made entirely by handwork.” 
We next call the manufacturer. We ask 
him why he makes such ornate and ugly 
furniture ? He testifies that he manufactures 
in order to make money. 
That he cannot do this un¬ 
less he can sell his goods. 
He frankly admits that the 
goods he turns out are 
very ugly, that he would 
never make such hideous 
things for his own use, but 
that they are the only kind 
the merchants will buy. 
The merchant testifies 
that he buys gaudy stuffed 
furniture, gilded chairs, 
brass and onyx tables, and 
sideboards, tables, etc., 
loaded with jumbles of 
twistings, turnings and all 
sorts of contortions, because 
he cannot sell plain, digni- 
