VERBIAGE
Certainly lawyers can not rail at theologians for adhesion to traditional forms.
An author who inveighed against the practise of lawyers drawing long deeds and settlements, thus satirized it: “If a man were to give to another an orange he would merely say, ‘I give you this orange’; but when the transaction is entrusted to the hands of a lawyer to put it in writing, he adopts this form, ‘I hereby give, grant and convey to you all and singular my estate and interest, right, title, claim and advantage of and in the said orange, together with all its rind, skin, juice, pulp, and pips, and all right and advantage therein, with full power to bite, cut, suck, and otherwise eat the same, or give the same away as fully and effectually as I, the said A B, am now entitled to bite, cut, suck, or otherwise eat the same orange, or give the same away, with or without its rind, skin, juice, pulp, and pips, anything hereinbefore or hereinafter, or in any other deed or deeds, instrument or instruments, of what nature or kind soever to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.’” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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VERSATILITY
The following anecdote is told of Cyrus Hamlin, a lifelong missionary in Turkey and the chief founder of Robert College in Constantinople:
One day at Bowdoin, Professor Smith delivered a lecture on the steam-engine to Hamlin’s class, not one of whom, perhaps, had ever seen a steam-engine. Those were the days of the stage-coach and the ox-team. After the lecture he said to Professor Smith, “I believe I could make an engine.” The professor replied, “I think you can make anything you undertake, Hamlin, and I wish you would try.” He did try, and succeeded. By working twelve and sometimes fifteen hours each day, he built a steam-engine sufficiently large to be of real service as a part of the philosophical apparatus of the college.—Youth’s Companion.
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Versatility Required—See [Details, Peril of].
VERSION, HIS MOTHER’S