By Harmen van Steenwyck (the National Gallery, London)
Footsteps on the stairs below alerted the playful boy* in me. I crouched by the door in the hallway in wait for my 40-something-year-old brother. In the few seconds it took him to reach the first floor, I was making up my mind whether this time I would be the neighbour's dog** or a mad dwarf vampire. His hand reached for the handle, the door opened and I... well, I was just about to give out a mad bark (I can't remember what I eventually decided to be; I guess a dwarf vampire could also bark madly?) when my brother, who must have somehow caught a movement of my shadow when I was readjusting my position for the upcoming semi-leap, said in a frustratingly relaxed, matter-of-fact voice: 'All in vain.'
When I was getting up, I realised this flop had been predicted quite a way back, so I walked away murmuring: '... Vanity. All is vanity. What profit has a man of all his labour which he takes under the sun?'
*I realised the other day, that your spirituality is in many, perhaps even in the most crucial, respects proportionate to the degree to which you've cultivated, or re-awoken, the happy,
playful boy (girl) in you.
** you don't want to know it.
