A WILL IN WHIMSY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

A WILL IN WHIMSY.

-'MY JOY IN HARD WORK." MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSION. SIR JAMES BARRIE'S LEGACIES Now and then Sir James M. Barrie, shy and retiring, is induced to make a speech, and Lis utterances ibecome at once a part of the Barrie tradition. Recently ho appeared at a dinner of the Authors' Club in London and there he made his will, bequeathing his most precious possession—"my joy in hard work"—to the club and distributing other whimsical bequests, among them, "with pride but with misgiving," he said, H. G. Wells. Here is tho text of the will. "Wills, you know, aro usually disappointing things especially authors' -wills—but I think I might give a friendly glow to the proceedings if I announce that you all are to be beneficiary legatees. And so I move that we resolve ourselves into a family party to drop the speech and get on with tho will. In the days before the war, which is a new phrase for "Once upon a time," there died in a lunatic asylum an old man, very friendless and said to be quite insane, and so poor that when ho died they could find no effects except two or three sheets of paper on which he had written his will. Ho left to all parents in charge for their children all nice little words of encouragement, all pet names of endearment to be used. lavishly as required. And to every boy and girl anywhere he left all the woods and the trees and the flowers and streams to play about in, and long, long days for them to be merry in, and .the moon and the stars to wonder at. Bequeathed to Friends. I think that some of us, the few who no longer wear the rose of youth, might do worse than try and imitate the old ■ man's fancy and looking back, see whether there are any odds and ends of no financial value which we can leave to the more easily pleased of our friends. For myself, I leave to the Authors' Club the most precious possession I ever 1 had —my joy in hard work. Hard work, mora than any other woman, in the world, is the one to stand up best for her man.' She takes notes of his little follies and peccadillos and "writes them all in a black book, and she gives him a present of the book for keeps and for his rather melancholy consideration in the dark. She is the prettiest thing in literature and when you and she think you have been working pretty well and you think you can afford to take her for a blowout at a restaurant you cannot think how splendid she is—but she looks even better in rags. I have one or two other bequests, some of them heartening and some perhaps left in malice. I leave to you all everything connected with science and machinery, including broadcasting, though I do not. believe for one moment there is any such- thing. ' I have a feeling that it is one of those I inventions of this age which we owe : to Mr. H. G. Wells. He has a million njotors chasing me through the.streets everyday aand tb.ey~a.re sure to get me 1 in the enclf AncLwhen.they do" I doubt - • whether* iEnere will be any "outline" of I me left. ' ' ' An Author as a Legacy. I hold that this age in which I now. ' find ..myself will be known in history : .as the "Dark Days of Wells." Mr. . -• Well* is one of the great glories of our I calling, and I 'bequeath him to you with j pride but with misgiving. ' And now for the ladies. I leave to \ ~ the younger gentlemen in this room the '■ - : control of woman. We used to have ' ..'• ifc—or is that a .dream? I think I ' ■ will withdraw -that bequest. It is too? much,; ~.-' *." < I modify it, to this extent—l leave to you young gentlemen, not the control J of the ladies, but the breath to keep i up with them. . Yes, and the daunt- , lessness to accept all their challenges , and some of their spirit to make up , for that rib. ...-..,..■•