Thought for the day: A choice quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, comparing the worlds of fantasy with modern architecture:

Even more alarming: goodness is itself bereft of its proper beauty. In Faërie one can indeed conceive of an ogre who possesses a castle hideous as a nightmare (for the evil of the ogre wills it so), but one cannot conceive of a house built with a good purpose–an inn, a hostel for travellers, the hall of a virtuous and noble king–that is yet sickeningly ugly. At the present day it would be rash to hope to see one that was not–unless it was built before our time.

(From “On Fairy-Stories,” the Andrew Lang Lecture delivered at the University of St. Andrews, March 8, 1939. Reprinted in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, edited by Christopher Tolkien.)