oy!

He found it curiously difficult to grasp the thought in its entirety. He
stood the master of unlimited leisure for the rest of his life, and of
power to enrich that life with everything that money could buy,--but
there was an odd inability to feel about it as he knew he ought to feel.

Somehow, for some unaccountable reason, an absurd depression hovered
about over his mind, darkening it with formless shadows. It was as if he
were sorry that the work was all finished--that there was nothing more
for him to do. But that was too foolish, and he tried to thrust it from
him. He said with angry decision to himself that he had never liked the
work; that it had all been unpleasant and grinding drudgery, tolerable
only as a means to an end; that now this end had been reached, he wanted
never to lay eyes on the City again.

Let him dwell instead upon the things he did want to lay eyes upon. Some
travel no doubt he would like, but not too much; certainly no more than
his wife would cheerfully accept as a minimum. He desired rather to rest
among his own possessions. To be lord of the manor at Pellesley Court,
with his own retinue of servants and dependents and tenants, his own
thousands of rich acres, his own splendid old timber, his own fat stock
and fleet horses and abundant covers and prize kennels--THAT was what
most truly appealed to him. It was not at all certain that he would
hunt; break-neck adventure in the saddle scarcely attracted him. But
there was no reason in the world why he should not breed racing horses,
and create for himself a distinguished and even lofty position on the
Turf. He had never cared much about races or racing folk himself, but
when the Prince and Lord Rosebery and people like that went in for
winning the Derby, there clearly must be something fascinating in it.

Then Parliament, of course; he did not waver at all from his old if
vague conception of a seat in Parliament as a natural part of the outfit
of a powerful country magnate. And in a hundred other ways men should
think of him as powerful, and look up to him. He would go to church
every Sunday, and sit in the big Squire's pew. He would be a magistrate
as a matter of course, and he would make himself felt on the County
Council. He would astonish the county by his charities, and in bad years
by the munificence of his reductions in rents. Perhaps if there were a
particularly bad harvest, he would decline all over his estate to exact
any ren