professional title, and Leeds as a seat of learning was laughed to
scorn. And the extraordinary thing was that these young men were
perfectly right--extraordinary, because, even as Jacob copied his pages,
he knew that no one would ever print them; and sure enough back they
came from the Fortnightly, the Contemporary, the Nineteenth Century--
when Jacob threw them into the black wooden box where he kept his
mother's letters, his old flannel trousers, and a note or two with the
Cornish postmark. The lid shut upon the truth.

This black wooden box, upon which his name was still legible in white
paint, stood between the long windows of the sitting-room. The street
ran beneath. No doubt the bedroom was behind. The furniture--three
wicker chairs and a gate-legged table--came from Cambridge. These houses
(Mrs. Garfit's daughter, Mrs. Whitehorn, was the landlady of this one)
were built, say, a hundred and fifty years ago. The rooms are shapely,
the ceilings high; over the doorway a rose, or a ram's skull, is carved
in the wood. The eighteenth century has its distinction. Even the
panels, painted in raspberry-coloured paint, have their distinction. ...

"Distinction"--Mrs. Durrant said that Jacob Flanders was "distinguished-
looking." "Extremely awkward," she said, "but so distinguished-looking."
Seeing him for the first time that no doubt is the word for him. Lying
back in his chair, taking his pipe from his lips, and saying to Bonamy:
"About this opera now" (for they had done with indecency). "This fellow
Wagner" ... distinction was one of the words to use naturally, though,
from looking at him, one would have found it difficult to say which seat
in the opera house was his, stalls, gallery, or dress circle. A writer?
He lacked self-consciousness. A painter? There was something in the
shape of his hands (he was descended on his mother's side from a family
of the greatest antiquity and deepest obscurity) which indicated taste.