On the right-hand side is the crest of the Harleys; on the left, the arms of the Tweedies. At the top the Medusa head and three legs represent Sicily. At different corners are implements, trappings, and odds and ends from various countries I have visited. The lamp of learning is burning brightly, the wreaths of fame, the book of knowledge are there, and a little ship is sailing away into the unknown; while below—and surely this is brilliant imagination—lies the world at my feet. This was sent to me with the following letter, written in the neatest and most brush-like of caligraphy: “13 HOLLAND STREET, KENSINGTON. “_Nov. 12, ’05._ “DEAR MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE, “I have pleasure to send you my design for a book-plate in which I have endeavoured to explain in symbolical way your literary activities and your triumphs of travel. “Trusting it may not be unpleasing, believe me, with kind regards, “Yours very truly, “WALTER CRANE.” At a later date, on returning a book, the kind originator of my treasure added some notes in pencil about this particular kind of work; notes quaint and full of pith as the writer’s drawing. “You have given me a handsome certificate as a book-plate designer and I must live up to it, though, so far, book-plates have only been a small part of my work. I am not always _Ex Libris_, but like a rest inside the pages, you know, letting one’s fancy loose, both as a writer and as a decorator and illustrator. All the same, there are moments when one is inclined to shriek, with Hilda in Ibsen’s _Master Builder_, ‘Books are so irrelevant,’ and, again, at other times to say (with Disraeli, was it not?), ‘When I want a book, I will write one.’” Another note given below enclosed his own book-plate: “I send you my own book-plate with the greatest pleasure. It has been done some years, and I do not think it is as nice a one as yours—though I say it! I am glad that yours not only pleases you, but your friends. I don’t know whether you saw it in the _Arts and Crafts_, but it was there.” As to book-plates, seeing that books are a particularly treasured kind of personal property and cannot yet be considered as communal as umbrellas; and because borrowers of books like long leases, but are generally provided with short memories, the possibly harmless, but certainly most necessary, book-plate has a distinct _raison d’être_. Furthermore, they afford an opportunity of embodying in a succinct, symbolic, and decorative form the concentrated essence of the character, performances, career, and descent of the book-owner or lover. Thus book-plates acquire a certain historic interest in course of time, and may from the first possess as well an artistic interest; but this, naturally, depends on their design and treatment. Next appears a notable figure thrown upon my cinematograph stage by the rapid process of setting free successive memories.