a certain extent, became a noted character.

He had, moreover, other difficulties to encounter in his professional
career. It was something in his favour that he understood his
business; something that he was willing to labour at it with energy;
and resolved to labour at it conscientiously. He had also other gifts,
such as conversational brilliancy, and aptitude for true good
fellowship, firmness in friendship, and general honesty of disposition,
which stood him in stead as he advanced in life. But, at his first
starting, much that belonged to himself personally was against him. Let
him enter what house he would, he entered it with a conviction, often
expressed to himself, that he was equal as a man to the proprietor,
equal as a human being to the proprietress. To age he would allow
deference, and to special recognized talent--at least so he said; to
rank also, he would pay that respect which was its clear and recognized
prerogative; he would let a lord walk out of a room before him if he
did not happen to forget it; in speaking to a duke he would address him
as His Grace; and he would in no way assume a familiarity with bigger
men than himself, allowing to the bigger man the privilege of making
the first advances. But beyond this he would admit that no man should
walk the earth with his head higher than his own.

He did not talk of these things much; he offended no rank by boasts of
his own equality; he did not absolutely tell the Earl de Courcy in
words, that the privilege of dining at Courcy Castle was to him no
greater than the privilege of dining at Courcy Parsonage; but there was
that in his manner that told it. The feeling in itself was perhaps
good, and was certainly much justified by the manner in which he bore
himself to those below him in rank; but there was folly in the
resolution to run counter to the world's recognized rules on such