A GARDEN DIARY 115 
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 hap- 
pened.” 
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 some- 
what 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. 
