There is a little tapestry fire-screen in my sitting-room here, which
has been disturbing me quite seriously all this winter. It represents a
group of Boers--when the tapestry was made I take it the word was spelt
_boors_--of various ages and sexes, but all equally convulsed with
laughter. The central figure is a big, square-jawed, good-natured
looking fellow, who holds aloft in his hands a tiny, red-coated toy
manikin, which he is causing to perform ridiculous antics for the
amusement of a solid infant of two or three years old, who is trying to
reach it. At a table close by an old man sits eating, in a suit of what
appears to be greasy grey corduroys. He also grins with satisfaction at
the performance. So does a woman--presumably the mother of the solid
infant--who looks back laughingly from a doorway, over the dish which
she carries in her hands. Other Boers, or boors, are to be seen in the
background, all equally convulsed by the ludicrous figure cut by little
Red-coat; all distorting jaws--wide enough by nature--into grimaces
expressive of appreciation at his ridiculous position.
Since the original of this piece of tapestry was painted over three
hundred years ago by a painter named Teniers, it is not at all likely
that it was meant to represent our Boers of to-day, nor that the
ridiculous little manikin in the red coat could be meant for an
unfortunate _Rooinek_! In spite of that fact I have been unable for
months to endure to look at this side of my harmless little fire-screen.
Every morning on entering my sitting-room my first act has been to push
it up through its sliding groove, until only a pair of prodigiously
stout calves, and one infant’s shoe remain to be seen. To-day--and I
write the fact down as a sign of changed times--my fire-screen remains
untouched! More than this, I have found a malignant satisfaction in
sitting down before it, and, as I warmed my feet--damp with gardening
operations--surveying the row of grinning faces, with the little red
manikin still performing his degrading antics in their midst.
“Laugh away, my friends!” I remarked. “Laugh away! Make the most of your
time. Don’t disturb yourselves pray on my account. The unfortunate
_Rooinek_ is no doubt, as you say, a very ridiculous and helpless sort
of creature. At the same time don’t be too sure that he may not make a
sudden leap yet out of your fingers! Stranger things have happened.”
So many caricaturists, friendly and unfriendly, have made capital out of
this struggle of ours that I rather wonder none of them seem to have hit
upon this familiar Teniers. That accuracy that pertains to all genius is
plainly visible, moreover, as one looks at it, for the
portraits--evidently they are portraits--might be those of any group of
our worthy enemies to-day. As for the old fellow at the table, it might
be Oom Paul himself in proper person; the same air of somewhat
sanctimonious rectitude; the same broad fleshy nose, the same protruding
chin, the same semicircular sweep of grizzled beard. It sets one
reflecting upon the persistency of national types. Centuries rise, and
grow, and fade away; wars are made and cease again, but probably few
things in this fluctuating world change so little, or with such a
snail-like slowness, as the few broad lines upon which the
characteristics of any given race have once got themselves legibly
inscribed.