LABOR OF YEARS

Evening Star, Issue 18502, 8 December 1923, Page 18

LABOR OF YEARS

DESTROYED IX A MOMENT. WEALTHY ECCENTRIC’S WILL. Valuable historical manuscripts, left by Mr H. F. House, the wealthy retired Indian Civil servant, who was described as “ tho loneliest man in the world,” have boon destroyed, owing to instructions left in his will. , , When ho died suddenly last March, at a West End hotel, it was found that Mr House, who had an income of between £2,000 and £3,000 a year, had been wandering aimlessly from one hotel to another, living on about £3 a week, and refusing to tip servants because, he said, ho could not alford it. , Mr House never communicated with his relatives or friends, never smiled, never spoke to a woman, and very rarely to a man, and never drank or He bud stored up a largo number of old hooks and manuscripts, and it is tho latter which have now Ixhiu burnt, YEARS OF LABOR IN VAIN. Tho testimentary instructions have involved the destruction of the result of years of arduous and patient work on tho part of Mr House, who had been conducting researches for a new history of the English drama, says the ‘ Bookman’s Journal.’ Representations were, made both through the columns of the ‘ Bookman’s Journal ’ and privately, with the object of saving the manuscripts in the interests of scholarship. Mr House’s sister, the chief beneficiary, kept the papers for some time, but after a thorough examination of them, she felt bound to cany out her brother’s wishes. One of the documents left by him required his sister to sign a written declaration saying, “ I promise to carry out your wishes.” “ In the face of these insistent and impressive injunctions” adds the ‘ Bookman’s Journal,’ Mr House’s sister has carried out her melancholy duty—a task which occupied several hours, and congitrued to ashes the labor of years of this ardent bibliophile.”