that the decorative
designs that make lovely my book, A House of Pomegranates, are by the
hand of Mr. Shannon, while the delicate dreams that separate and herald
each story are by Mr. Ricketts. The contrary is the case. Mr. Shannon
is the drawer of the dreams, and Mr. Ricketts is the subtle and fantastic
decorator. Indeed, it is to Mr. Ricketts that the entire decorative
design of the book is due, from the selection of the type and the placing
of the ornamentation, to the completely beautiful cover that encloses the
whole. The writer of the paragraph goes on to state that he does not
'like the cover.' This is, no doubt, to be regretted, though it is not a
matter of much importance, as there are only two people in the world whom
it is absolutely necessary that the cover should please. One is Mr.
Ricketts, who designed it, the other is myself, whose book it binds. We
both admire it immensely! The reason, however, that your critic gives
for his failure to gain from the cover any impression of beauty seems to
me to show a lack of artistic instinct on his part, which I beg you will
allow me to try to correct.

He complains that a portion of the design on the left-hand side of the
cover reminds him of an Indian club with a house-painter's brush on top
of it, while a portion of the design on the right-hand side suggests to
him the idea of 'a chimney-pot hat with a sponge in it.' Now, I do not
for a moment dispute that these are the real impressions your critic
received. It is the spectator, and the mind of the spectator, as I
pointed out in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, that art really
mirrors. What I want to indicate is this: the artistic beauty of the
cover of my book resides in the delicate tracing, arabesques, and massing
of many coral-red lines on a ground of white ivory, the colour effect
culminating in certain high gilt notes, and being made still more
pleasurable by the overlapping band of moss-green cloth that holds the
book together.

What the gilt notes suggest, what imitative parallel may be found to them
in that chaos that is termed Nature, is a matter of no importance. They
may suggest, as they do sometimes to me, peacocks and pomegranates and
splashing fountains of gold water, or, as they do to your critic, sponges
and Indian clubs and chimney-pot hats. Such suggestions and evocations
have nothing whatsoever to do with the aesthetic quality and value of the
design. A thing in Nature b