BEST WILL EVER MADE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 19 November 1927, Page 9

BEST WILL EVER MADE

TT is in keeping with things that per- "*■ haps, the sanest and most beautiful will ever made should have been the production of a lunatic. At least the writer of it, one Charles Lounsberrv, a member of the Bar of Illinois, UjS.A., died in an asylum, but how much more admirable was his will than some of tnc embittered testaments of the eminently sane, the reader shall judge for self (savs the Edinburgh “Weekly Scotsman’’). Here it is: “I, 'Charles Lounsberrv, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do hereby make and publish this my last will and testament, in order, as justly as may be.'to distribute my interest in the world among succeeding men. I leave to children inclusively, but only- for the term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the fields, and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely, according to the customs of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. And I devise to children the banks of the brooks and the golden sand beneath the waters thereof, and the odours of the willows, that dip therein, and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees. And 1 leave to children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night and the moon, and the trail of the Milkv Wav to wonder at, subject nevertheless to the rights hereinafter given to lovers. I devise to boys jointly. all the useful idle fields and com-

,mens where ball may be played; all | pleasant waters where one may all snow-clad hills where one may coast and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim winter conies, one may skate —to have and to held these same for the period of their boyhood. To lovers I devise their imaginary world, with whatever they may need—-as the stars of the sky, the red roses by the. wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else they may require, to figure to each other the lastingness and beauty of their lives. To young men jointly I devise and bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports and rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness, and undaunted confidence in their own strength. Though they are rude, I leave to them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively I give all merry songs and brave choruses to sing with lusty voices. And to those who arc no longer children, or youths, or lovers, I leave memory, and I her queath to them the volumes of the pee ms of Burns and Shakespeare, and of other poems, if there be others, to the end that they may live the old days over again freely and fully, and with; out title or diminution. To our loved one with snowy crowns I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children; until they fall asleep. ’ ’