Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
“The older I grow,” Mr. E. V. Lucas has said, “the less, I find, do I want to read about anything but human beings.... But human beings, as human beings, are not enough; they must, to interest me, have qualities of simplicity or candour or quaintness.”
“The older I grow,” Mr. E. V. Lucas has said, “the less, I find, do I want to read about anything but human beings.... But human beings, as human beings, are not enough; they mu...
2. CHAPTER IIIt is impossible for a will to be always and in all events binding. If Virgil’s will had been scrupulously observed, his fame would have been grievously curtailed; for the “Ænei...
3. CHAPTER III“My readers,” writes Boswell, “are now, at last, to behold Samuel Johnson preparing himself for that doom from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to man.” There c...
4. CHAPTER IV“Because mention is made of Death in men’s wills and testaments, I warrant you there is none will set his hand to them, till the physician hath given his last doom, and utterly...
5. CHAPTER VAfter various bequests, including the interesting one of $100 “unto the redemption of the poor English captives in Constantinople,” the will of James Peckett, merchant, made in...
6. CHAPTER VI“She bequeaths, she repeats, she recalls a donation, And ends by revoking her own revocation; Still scribbling or scratching some new codicil, Oh! success to the woman who makes...
7. CHAPTER VIIIt was said that such expressions of religious faith as those of Dr. Johnson and his namesake were still frequent in the eighteenth century, and still to some extent formal. The...
8. CHAPTER VIIIJohn Oliver Hobbes, in “The Dream and the Business,” makes Firmalden’s uncle leave to him £5,000 a year, on condition that he should become and remain a Congregational minister....
9. CHAPTER IXIt is said that Lord Eldon, in early days, would wrest pieces of poetry into the form of legal instruments, and that he succeeded in reducing “Chevy Chace” into the style of a b...
10. CHAPTER XThomas Penistone, in the preamble to his will quoted in “The Way of All Flesh,” insists on the confusion or disputation an intestacy might cause. The regular formula, occurring...
11. CHAPTER XIIt is easy to discover such ugly facts as have just been disclosed. But love and gratitude are certainly more frequent. In many cases we see a picture of sweet and gentle family...
12. CHAPTER XII“O good old man! how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Wher...
13. CHAPTER XIIIA testator who spends careful thought upon his servants may not unnaturally have a concern for the welfare of his animals and pets. When Boswell notes Dr. Johnson’s “uncommon ki...
14. CHAPTER XIVTo be apprised of the approach of death, to have the leisure quietly to retire, to make his will, and to retreat in peace, was the good fortune of the famous Bill Blinder. “This...
15. CHAPTER XV“It is a common use to entertain The knowledge of a great man by his train: How great’s the _dead man_ then? There’s none that be So backed with troops of _followers_ as he.” QU...
16. CHAPTER XVIIt is not surprising that stories of haunting or of the supernatural should be linked with wills. The perturbation of the dying man, as he utters his last bequest or ponders upo...