“ ... I leave the children for the term of their childhood the flowers, fields, blossoms, and woods, with the right to play among them freely, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. I devise to the children the banks, the brooks, and the golden sands beneath waters thereof, and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees, and I leave to the children long long days to be merry in, and the night and the moon and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at.
“I devise to the boys jointly all the useful fields, all the pleasant waters where one may swim, all the streams where one may fish or where, when grim winter comes, one may skate, to have and hold the same for the period of their boyhood.... I give to the said boys each his own place by the fireside at night, with all the pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance and without any encumbrance or care.
“To lovers I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need, as stars, sky, red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else they may desire.... To the loved ones with snowy crowns I bequeath happiness, old age, the love and gratitude of their children, until they fall asleep.”
FOOTNOTE
[2] A few passages are here quoted from this will as it appeared in the Daily Telegraph. It seems that its appellation “The Lunatic’s Will” is erroneous and that it was a deliberate literary composition. See Harris’s “Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills” referred to in the Preface. In that book it is quoted in full and its real origin given.
CHAPTER X
STRIFE
Thomas 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 over and over, is that the will is made for avoiding controversies after death; or, as one John Nabbs says (1665), “the unhappy controversies usual in default of such settlements.” Robert Collyer, whose will was proved November 8, 1665, makes a peculiarly interesting addendum as to the law in his day: “the reason why I trouble not myself with witnesses is because a will so made by a man himself, although many imperfections in regard of form and the like may be in it, yet it is as good in law as if it were published and declared before many witnesses; which if people did but take notice of, many wills would be made that are not and much contention prevented; which I heard Serjeant Maynard plead for law in a case between Master Christopher Coles and Master Walter Bartellott at Westminster Hall.”
There is a pathetic fallacy in this expectation. Some controversies may be avoided, but bitter disputes too often are aroused—disputes about the will’s validity, the meaning of its provisions, the capacity of the testator, the legality or interpretation of a bequest, its justice or injustice, and so on interminably. Such a work as Theobald’s “Law of Wills” illustrates, by the thousands of decisions it brings together, what questions and queries arise on the legal and interpretative sides alone.