My answer was--or rather was to the effect (for I must expand it a little, here)--that his words, "because you did not apply them," contained the gist of the whole matter;--that the application of them, or any other things, was precisely the essence of design; the non- application, or wrong application, the negation of design: that his use of the poor materials was in this case admirable; and that if he could explain to me, in clear words, the principles on which he had so used them, he would be doing a very great service to all students of art. "Tell me, therefore (I asked), these main points: "1. How did you determine the number of figures you would put into the neckerchief? Had there been more, it would have been mean and ineffective,--a pepper-and-salt sprinkling of figures. Had there been fewer, it would have been monstrous. How did you fix the number? "2. How did you determine the breadth of the border and relative size of the numerals? "3. Why are there two lines outside of the border, and one only inside? Why are there no more lines? Why not three and two, or three and five? Why lines at all to separate the barbarous figures; and why, if lines at all, not double or treble instead of single? "4. Why did you put the double blots at the corners? Why not at the angles of the chequers,--or in the middle of the border? "It is precisely your knowing why _not_ to do these things, and why to do just what you have done, which constituted your power of design; and like all the people I have ever known who had that power, you are entirely unconscious of the essential laws by which you work, and confuse other people by telling them that the design depends on symmetry and series, when, in fact, it depends entirely on your own sense and judgment." This was the substance of my last answer--to which (as I knew beforehand would be the case) I got no reply; but it still remains to be observed that with all the skill and taste (especially involving the architect's great trust, harmony of proportion), which my friend could bring to bear on the materials given him, the result is still only--a sporting neckerchief--that is to say, the materials addressed, first, to recklessness, in the shape of a mere blot; then to computativeness in a series of figures; and then to absurdity and ignorance, in the shape of an ill-drawn caricature--such materials, however treated, can only work up into what will please reckless, computative, and vulgar persons,--that is to say, into a sporting neckerchief. The difference between this piece of ornamentation and Correggio's painting at Parma lies simply and wholly in the additions (somewhat large ones), of truth and of tenderness: in the drawing being lovely as well as symmetrical-- and representative of realities as well as agreeably disposed. And truth, tenderness, and inventive application or disposition are indeed the roots of ornament--not contrast, nor symmetry.