Besom

“ I have not money enough even to bury me, and yet, if I were at home, I might be called a rich man, as men go. My little Iris will be an heiress. At the very moment when I learn that I am my father's heir, I am struck down by fever ”

“ When esquire South has got possession of his title and honour, is not John Bull to be his clothier? Who, then, but John, ought to put him in possession? Ask but any indifferent gentleman, who ought to bear his charges at law? and he will readily answer, his tradesmen. I do therefore affirm, and I will go to death with it, that, being his clothier, you ought to put him in quiet possession of his estate, and, with the same generous spirit you have begun it, complete the good work. If you persist in the bad measures you are now in, what must become of the three poor orphans? ”

“ Likewise if a debtor, from the time when he began to be bounden to the king, shall have rented his estate or revenue to another, or have given it as a pledge for money, or even—which, perhaps, will seem absurd to thee—have transferred his domain from himself by sale: if means can not otherwise be found to give satisfaction to the king, whoever the person be or by whatever title he may have gained possession,—nevertheless what belongs to the king shall be taken from him; saving the proprietorship of the lord who has commenced to possess it with a just title. ”

“ I am the late owner of this house. During my lifetime I took possession of another man's property—a farm—to which I had no right whatever; in fact, I was no better than a thief. If my wife does not make restitution and return the property to the right owner I shall go—to hell, from which I am not very far now, and so will my wife and family. But if she makes restitution we shall be saved, and all go to heaven. ”

“ If you give them money, they will infallibly decline to work, and live upon you. If you call upon them and give them recognition, they will infallibly disgrace you.”
“The solicitor asked for nothing. This cousin of ours has been building hopes upon what he calls accumulations. He evidently thinks that the old man is not in a condition to make a will, and that all that is left of personal property will be divided in two equal shares, one moiety among your father’s heirs on our side, while the other will go to the old lady his grandmother on the other side.” ”

“ He that thought he should have made his son a gentleman leaves him a beggar; he begets a son, and brings him up in the prospect of an estate, but, when he dies, leaves it under a charge of debt as much as it is worth, so that there is nothing in his hand. This is a common case; estates that made a great show do not prove what they seemed, but cheat the heir.
6. How much soever men have when they die, they must leave it all behind them (v. 15, 16) : As he came forth of his mother's womb naked, so shall he return ”

“ An entailed estate has nothing to do with a will. Now, my estate is not entailed, and is connected with a will. It is about that I am going to talk to you. I can make one, giving my property to whomsoever I please; either to your brother Nigel or yourself. Marry Miss Mainwaring, and it shall be Nigel’s. Still, to you I shall leave just enough to carry you out of the country—that is one thousand pounds sterling. ”

“ It is estimated that certificates of ownership in human beings, or, as you called them, titles to property, to the value of forty billion dollars, together with hundreds of millions of paper money, went up in that great blaze, which we devoutly consider must have been, of all the innumerable burnt sacrifices which have been offered up to God from the beginning, the one that pleased him best. ”

“ There must be accumulations. In case of no will, these accumulations would be divided equally between your grandfather’s heirs and my grandmother. Do you know of any will, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
“I know nothing of any will.”
“It is most unlikely that there should be any will. A man who has been off his head for nearly seventy years can hardly leave a will. If he did, one could easily set it aside. Mr. Campaigne, it is on the cards that there may be enormous accumulations.” ”

“ The following are the words of my lord Coke. “When all estates were fee simple, then were purchasers sure of their purchases, farmers of their leases, creditors of their debts; the king and lords had their escheats, forfeitures, wardships, and other profits of their seignories: and for these, and other like cases, by the wisdom of the common law, all estates of inheritance were fee simple; and what contentions and mischiefs have crept into the quiet of the law by these fettered inheritances, daily experience teacheth us.” ”

“ In this estate book is set down the name of every little estate (or fisc as it was called) belonging to the abbey, with a description of the land which was worked under its steward to its own profit, and the land which was held by tenants, and the names of those tenants and of their wives and of their children, and the exact services and rents, down to a plank and an egg, which they had to do for their land. We know today the name of almost every man, woman, and child who was living on those little fiscs in the time of Charlemagne, and a great deal about their daily lives. ”

“ The Fifth Behest, O my son, is Keep thy wealth and it will keep thee; guard thy money and it will guard thee; and waste not thy substance lest haply thou come to want and must fare a-begging from the meanest of mankind. Save thy dirhams and deem them the sovereignest salve for the wounds of the world. ”

“ The proviso is this: That should you not live to be seventy years of age, the estate, and all pertaining to it, shall pass away from you and yours at your death, and go to your cousin, the son of my brother Henry; or to his heirs, should he not be alive at the time. But should you overpass your seventieth birthday, though it be but by twelve short hours, the estate will remain yours, to will away to whom you please, or to dispose of as you may think best. ”

“ The property of their parents!... Why bless me, Betsy Compton, how you do talk!... as if you did not know that all the property they ever had, is as good as gone. Has not farmer Wright got the estate? And has not the butcher, and the baker, and the shoemaker, and all the rest of them, got what it sold for, as well as my thousand pounds among them, long ago? ”

“ Homesteads generally, estates of dower and curtesy frequently, as well as other portions of an estate, are not the subject of devise or bequest.
“There never was a fitter application of Pope’s line, ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing,’ than in the preparation of wills; and it is a most astounding fact that men who have lived prudently, who have been conservative and successful in business, who have accumulated large wealth, who have been buffeted by every wave of misfortune, will attempt, by their own hands or through incompetent agents, to write their wills. ”

“ Presently I shall sit down to write.”
“Well, I look forward to the result.”
“Look here, Leonard”—he dropped his voice. “I hear that you go to see the old man sometimes. He is nearly ninety-five. He can’t last much longer. Of course the estate is yours. But how about the accumulations.”
“I know nothing about the accumulations.”
“With the pater’s large practice and our share of the accumulations, don’t you think it is too bad of him to keep up this fuss about my work? Why should I trouble my head about money? There will be—there must be—plenty of money. ”

“ The debt, owed by the living member of a family to his manes, was to provide a successor to perform the rites necessary to them after his own death.
“By means of the eldest son, as soon as he is born, a man becomes possessed of a son and is thus cleared of his debt to the manes”
“A husband is born again on earth in his son.”
“If among many brothers born of one father, one should have a son, Manu said all those brothers would be possessed of sons by means of that son.” i.e. one representative was sufficient as regards the duties to the manes in the house of the grandfather. ”

“ While considering the subject of wills and bequests, I ran through the volume edited by Dr. Furnivall called The Fifty Earliest English Wills. These were from 1389 to 1439. A brief analysis shows that in most cases bequests are made to the parish church, either to the High Altar, or to the “Works,” either of vestments, or of money to the priests and clerks, or of money for masses, a rental of masses or “the year’s mind” for twenty, seven, or five years. In seventeen cases, or perhaps more, provision is made for the poor; in three cases for prisons and prisoners; in three cases for nuns ”

“ There was many a poor faithful woman who could not find the money to pay for a Chantry or an obit, or an Annual, for the soul of her husband or her son—though well she knew, poor creature, how much he wanted that assistance. ”

“ Picture to yourself, if you can, a country in which256 the king imposed his own judges upon the people; a king who could order them as he pleased; could sentence, fine, banish, imprison or hang without any power of appeal; who could make in his own interest his own laws without consulting any one; who could seize estates at their owner’s death and could give the heirs what he pleased, as much or as little; who could hand these heirs over to be the prey of a feudal lord, who only suffered them to live in order that he might rob them. ”

“ To read one verse, or even one word, in a spirit of joy and radiance, is preferable to the perusal of many Books.
69. QUESTION: May a person, in drawing up his will, assign some portion of his property—beyond that which is devoted to payment of Ḥuqúqu’lláh and the settlement of debts—to works of charity, or is he entitled to do no more than allocate a certain sum to cover funeral and burial expenses, so that the rest of his estate will be distributed in the manner fixed by God among the designated categories of heirs?
ANSWER: A person hath full jurisdiction over his property. ”

“ We represented to him that thou wouldst spend this money in paying thy creditors and said, ‘Whence shall he provide for his subsistence?’ So he ordered thee other three hundred thousand, and we have sent thee, of our own money, a million dirhems each, so that thou hast now three millions and three hundred thousand dirhems, wherewithal to order thine affair and amend thine estate.”
See, then, the munificence of these generous men; may God the Most High have mercy on them! ”

“ In this family there was a laudable practice with the younger sons, that they stayed not at home, as is too often their custom, leading indolent lives without ambition or fortune, but they sallied forth and sought fortune in trade, or in the Law, or in the Church, or in foreign service—wherever fortune is to be honourably won—so that, though I daresay some have proved dead and dry branches, [19] others have put forth flowers and fruit abundantly, forming new and vigorous trees sprung from the ancient root. ”

“ He sent his son; the husbandmen took counsel with themselves; they said, This is the only heir to all this wealth, and if we take his life the vast inheritance is ours.
11. They took his life and cast him out beyond the vineyard hedge.
12. The days will come; the owner will return to reckon with the husbandmen, and he will seize them every one, and cast them into scorching fires where they shall stay until they pay the debts they owe.
13. And he will place his vineyard in the care of honest men. ”

“ All the rest, residue and remainder of my property and estate, real, personal and mixed, however described and wherever situated, of which I die seized and possessed, or in or to which at the time of my decease I have any right, title or interest, I give, devise and bequeath to my mother Sarah S. Lovecraft – To Have and To Hold the same unto and to the use of herself and her heirs and assigns forever. ”

“ Not only were there money debts, but even my modest patrimony was gone. Thus does fond youth foolishly throw good money after bad. I should have kept my patrimony to go abroad with, and spent nothing but my debts. I am now, however, home again. I should have called, but I have important appointments in the City, where, you may be pleased to learn, my name and my voice carry weight. Meantime, I hear that you will be asked to meet me at my brother Christopher’s on Wednesday. ”

“ Branches long since obscure and forgotten come to the light again; members long since supposed—or hoped—to be gone away to the Ewigkeit appear alive, and with progeny. They rally round the money; the possessor of the money becomes the head of the family, the object of their most sincere respect, the source of dignity and pride to the whole family. ”

“ Believe me your creditors with a more fervent devotion will beseech [Providence] to pro [Pg 199] long your life, they being of nothing more afraid than that you should die.... I, in this only respect and consideration of being a debtor, esteem myself worshipful, reverend, and formidable. For, against the opinion of most philosophers, that of nothing ariseth nothing, yet, without having bottomed on so much as that which is called the First Matter [Primary Matter] , did I out of nothing become such [a] maker and creator, that I have created—what?—a gay number of fair and jolly creditors. ”