The Undiscovered Country Author:W. D. Howells Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: '; j Mr. Phillips's father had been in business on that obscure line which divides the wholesale mer- . chant's social acceptabijity from the lost conditio... more »n of th(3 retail dealer. When he died, however, his son emerged forever from the social twilight in which the father had been content to remain. He took account of his means, and found that he had enough to live handsomely upon, not only without anything like shop-keeping, but without business of any sort, and he courageously resolved to be a man of lei- t/sure. He had (certain tastes which qualified him for this life ; he had read much, and he had traveled abroad. He joined a club convenient to the lodging which he kept in his paternaTlfome, letting out the rest of the house to a thrifty woman whose interest it was that he should have nothing to complain of. Every morning, at nine precisely, he breakfasted at the club, beside one of tfrepleasant- est windows ; the sun came in there in the afternoon, and except in the winter months he dined at another table. His' breakfast and his dinner were the chief events of a day which he had the wisdom to keep as like every other day as he could, unless for some very gootf reason. When he had finished either meal, he turned over the newspapers and magazines, largely English, in the reading-room; after dinner he often dozed a few minutes in his chair. For the rest, he paid visits and went about to the picture stores and to the studios. Now and then he bought a painting, which in his hands turned-out a good investment; but his passion was (bricabracj and he liked the excitement of the auc- tionSroom, where he picked up from time to time a rug, a queer vase, a colonial clock, a claw-footed table or chest of drawers, and added them to his stores. He kept up with the current literat...« less