Wills

“ Above all, the thought that a will is nothing if not a preparation for death gives to its study the ultimate significance. For what can be more momentous than decisions then; what more humorous, in the older and deeper sense, than foibles and follies at such an hour? ”

“ Sarah Wills of Bristol, whose will is dated October 30, 1797, writes with similar intimacy of feeling. “It is with a deep sense of gratitude I acknowledge the kindness of my dear son, and happy should I think myself if I had it in my power to reward him to my utmost wish, but I trust that God who have so wonderfully blest him will never forsake him, and also trust that he’ll never forsake the God of his mercies; He who have been the guide of his youth, may He be the support of his more advanced years. ”

“ The legatees starve, but the lawyers are fed;
The Seniors have riches, the Juniors have bread;
The available surplus of course will be nil,
From the worthy testator who makes his own will.
“You had better pay toll when you take to the road,
Than attempt by a by-way to reach your abode;
You had better employ a conveyancer’s hand,
Than encounter the risk that your will shouldn’t stand.
From the broad beaten track when the traveler strays,
He may land in a bog, or be lost in a maze;
And the law, when defied, will avenge itself still,
On the man and the woman who make their own will.” ”

“ THE POLYCODICILLIC WILL
“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 her own will.” “Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills.”
In preceding papers examples have been given of wills delayed till the eleventh hour: but to some the making of wills and codicils becomes, at times, a hobby, if not an obsession. “What is a poor woman with no family to do? Affection for nieces must fluctuate.” ”

“ He who must still exhort himself, and be exhorted, to will the good, has as yet no firm and ever-ready will, but wills a will anew every time he needs it. But he who has such a stable will, wills what he wills for ever, and cannot under any circumstances will otherwise than he always wills. For him freedom of the will is destroyed and swallowed up in necessity. ”

“ Why, if the will is not distinguished from the affections, we shall have the will acting upon itself; a doctrine to which the necessitarian will not listen for a moment. And if they are distinguished from the will, we shall have two powers of action, two forces in the mind, each contending for the mastery. But what do we mean by a will, if it is not the faculty by which the mind acts, by which it exerts a real force? And if this be the idea and definition of a will, we cannot distinguish the will from the affections, and say that the latter exerts a real force, without making two wills. ”

“ Almighty, have made this my present testament of my last will for the disposing of the worldly goods which God has graciously granted to me.”
Such general prefaces have almost entirely disappeared from modern wills, but they were formerly a notable feature. It might be imagined that some justification was needed if a man intended to make his will. They are often beautiful, and sometimes quaint. ”

“ In my experience as a lecturer on the Law of Wills, and in the practical administration of estates controlled by wills, in which I have been engaged for many years, it has been a subject of surprise to me that no one in America has seriously undertaken the collection of curious and famous wills. ”

“ Truly in wills we are delighted with intimacies that elsewhere are seldom seen. Here, again, is a familiar touch in one of Dean Cheyney’s many codicils, already quoted in part: “Hond. Madam, As I have by will given the greatest part of my estate entirely unto your disposal (being desirous you should enjoy it and be made as happy as possible whilst in this world) , I make no doubt but, if you survive me, you will as well out of regard to justice as my request, immediately after my death make a will, and therein take effectual care of what I here recommend to you.... ”

“ We shall speak of this general will of the individuals of a state again, when we come to speak of Wills; for this general will is manifested always when it is the interest of all the individuals of a state that a deceased citizen should' have had a will, and that his will should be still valid ”

“ WILLS DEFINED.—The definition of Jarman is commonly used in defining a will: "A will is the instrument by which a person makes a disposition of his property to take effect after his decease, and which is, in its own nature, ambulatory, and revocable during his life." ”

“ The lawyer will tell you to have your will written and to have it well written; he will tell you that human nature is strongly marked in wills; he will tell you that his profession knows no more complicated and perplexing a document to prepare than a will; he will tell you that wills are frequently destroyed by unauthorized hands; he will tell you that when a provision is made by will which gives less than that which is allowed by law, that that provision will be attacked ”

“ A Will which acts purely and simply as will, by its own agency, entirely without any instrument or sensuous medium of its efficacy; which is absolutely, in itself, at once action and result; which wills and it is done, which commands and it stands fast; in which, accordingly, the demand of Reason to be absolutely free and self-active is represented. ”

“ Wills.—A will, untechnically speaking, is virtually a bill-of-sale or transfer of property by its owner to those he may designate, but differs from the ordinary bill-of-sale in that there is no consideration mentioned on the part of those who will receive the property, and the will is not operative until the death of the maker of it. No one can execute a will unless he is presumably in his right mind, and knows what he is doing. Nor can a will be made by an idiot or one insane. ”

“ In “The Will” a father wishes to disinherit his unworthy son and leave his estate to a worthy friend. The friend dissuades him, but keeps the first will in case the father should revive it. [Pg 55]
“The Will in hand, the Father musing stood, Then gravely answered, ‘Your advice is good; Yet take the paper, and in safety keep; I’ll make another will before I sleep, But if I hear of some atrocious deed, That deed I’ll burn, and yours will then succeed. ”

“ As lawyers and courts of law are extremely addicted to making wills for dead men, which they never made when living, it is my will and desire that no person who shall set aside, or attempt to set aside, the will above referred to, shall ever inherit, possess, or enjoy any part of my estate, real or personal.
“John Randolph, of Roanoke, (Seal.) ”

“ Here is a danger which the best-intentioned Catholic association may encounter; an obstruction, an invincible barrier, which may arise from the unexpected disagreement of wills. Agreement of wills is essential as well as harmony of intelligence. ”

“ Power can be transmitted, but not will.' (II, i.) In order to the possibility of a representation of the general will, there must be a permanent accord between it and the individual will or wills of the person or persons representing it. ”

“ It must not be forgotten that while all men may make wills, and should do so, yet all men have not done so. It is a remarkable trait in human character that wills are for the most part postponed, and that many men of wealth and distinction die without them. So great a man as Abraham Lincoln left no will, though he had a considerable estate. General Grant also died intestate, but his estate was small. ”

“ At first, among the Romans, a will was neither secret, revocable, nor of effect, until after death—characteristics which we necessarily associate with a will in modern times. A will then was more like a conveyance in a man’s lifetime—a sale of the family rights, property, and obligations, in the presence of witnesses, to a person known as the Emptor Familiæ, who assumed the place of the testator as head of the family. ”

“ That is to say, a declaration of the consenting wills of two persons that one of them shall henceforth be under an obligation to the other naturally assumes the form of an undertaking by the one with the other to fulfil the obligation so created. ”

“ A well known author on wills says:
“‘In short, a will may be a man’s monument or his folly. Prudence, therefore, demands that the testator plan wisely, and frame his testamentary provisions with great care. That is, he should, if possible, use such words that his plan shall not be misunderstood and shall be carried into effect without dispute or litigation, for unlike instruments between living persons, it is only after the testator is dead and cannot explain his meaning that his will can take effect, or be open to dispute.’
“I recommend that of each will there be made a copy ”

“ A will, from its nature, is the declaration of a man’s mind as to the proper disposition of his property after death. This declaration, as any other fact, is established by evidence, oral or written. It is not the essence of a will that it shall be in writing; the essence is the declared purpose or intention, and this is established, as any other fact in law, by witnesses, or by the written declaration of the testator. In Bacon’s Abridgement, a will, therefore, is defined to be, “A declaration of the mind, either by word or writing, in disposing of an estate ”

“ When the wills of many concur to some one and the same action, or effect, this concourse of their wills is called CONSENT; by which we must not understand one will of many men, for every man hath his several will ”

“ I might have so framed this my will as to have made idleness operate to forfeit the interests hereby conferred on my sons, or other young men, in my property, but I foresee that such a provision might, in some cases, work hardships, and I prefer to hope and to trust, as I do, that no son of mine, and no other young man who may, under this my will, succeed to the enjoyment of any property of mine, will so disregard my views herein expressed as to lead the life I so strongly deprecate. ”

“ Every citizen had the right to make a will and to leave his property to the ones he wished to receive it. There were two kinds of wills recognized, the one made in civil life before the public assembly, and the other was in military life, made when an army was drawn up ready for battle and while the auspices were being taken. ”

“ In this case we have the loss of the will, not only, of one of the astutest of lawyers, the most orthodox of conveyancers, but of a man who had made it his chief pleasure and study during the last four years of his life to provide for the disposition of his worldly wealth, when his Creator should summon away his spirit from earth, and return his mortal frame to the dust from which He had made it. ”

“ But the older we grow, the more do men and women, by reason only of their humanity, absorb our interest. In wills human nature is most vividly and variously displayed. In wills the dead speak, and in a manner live again. The poor and the rich, men learned and men illiterate, all alike have made interesting wills. ”

“ The residue of my estate,
I do bequeath to Mary Kate,
And I hereby appoint her for,
My last will, executor.
This eighteenth day of May was done,
In the year of our Lord, Nineteen One.”
{73} CHAPTER IV
CURIOUS WILLS
“Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad; for if a man walk with his middle finger pointing out, folk will think him mad, but not so if it be his forefinger.” ”

“ Our will ought to consent to the Divine will, as to its formal object, or as to the reason of willing. That ours may be a right will it ought to will that which is good and conformable to right reason, and, therefore, to the Divine will. For the Divine will wills that which right reason declares ought to be done. For the eternal Law which is in the mind and will of God is the norm and the rule of all goodness and all virtue. ”

“ A will should revoke all former wills; if this is not done, the last will may be taken in connection with others. If the testator is unmarried, he should state that fact. His statement does not make it true, but it may serve a very excellent purpose in thwarting the claims of designing persons.
“ (b) There may be a provision for funeral expenses, and suggestions with regard to a burial place and a monument.
“ (c) A provision for the payment of debts should be made, and the executor given full power to pay debts and to sell and convey any portion of the estate. ”

“ To cancel old wills, and invent new ones, is at last the sole business of such a testator’s existence; and relations and friends (some of whom have been bred up distinctly to inherit a large share of the property and have been, from their cradles, especially disqualified from devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on that account) are so often and so unexpectedly and summarily cut off, and reinstated, and cut off again, that the whole family, down to the remotest cousin, is kept in a perpetual fever. ”

“ It is obvious that within the scope of the present work it is inexpedient to treat of this subject extensively; it is considered only necessary to advert to a few of the leading and generally recognized rules followed in the construction of wills, both here and in England. ”

“ If there is an actual or constructive delivery of the property, the gift is good, notwithstanding the law of wills. The gift, however, must be absolute and the giver must die of that sickness.
“In making provision for children in wills, the corpus or principal fund is not infrequently to be turned over to them on arriving at legal age. According to my observation, the age of thirty is much preferable. It is not possible for any young man or woman at the end of minority to be possessed of much wisdom with reference to the care of property. ”