A weakness for crudely serviceable contrivances that
pointedly suggest immediate and wasteless use is present even in
the middle-class tastes; but it is there kept well in hand under
the unbroken dominance of the canon of reputable futility.
Consequently it works out in a variety of ways and means for
shamming serviceability -- in such contrivances as rustic fences,
bridges, bowers, pavilions, and the like decorative features. An
expression of this affectation of serviceability, at what is
perhaps its widest divergence from the first promptings of the
sense of economic beauty, is afforded by the cast-iron rustic
fence and trellis or by a circuitous drive laid across level
ground.
The select leisure class has outgrown the use of these
pseudo-serviceable variants of pecuniary beauty, at least at some
points. But the taste of the more recent accessions to the
leisure class proper and of the middle and lower classes still
requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty,
even in those objects which are primarily admired for the beauty
that belongs to them as natural growths.
The popular taste in these matters is to be seen in the prevalent
high appreciation of topiary work and of the
conventional flower-beds of public grounds.
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