it is a curious fact that such marks invariably exist in the filing cabinets of outwardly respectable people , like academics , if such can be considered people ) ; shelves creaking and groaning under their burden of books ; colour postcards and newspaper cuttings , yellowing , ageing , frayed at the edges , postcards and pictures of obscure flemish painters and charnel houses , and a photograph ( in colour ) of jimp dwarfed by several huge black men against a `` tall grass '' background .