BEAUTIFUL WILL

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3449, 28 April 1936, Page 2

BEAUTIFUL WILL

A LUNATIC’S GEM SIR JAMES BARRIE’S PRAISE KIND THOUGHTS FOR ALL. Sir James Barrie, who presided at a j recent dinner of the Authors’ Club, at Grosvenor House, London, proposed “The Ladies and Literature,” but said that he had decided not to talk about love, or ladies, or literature, but about a will instead. He said:— “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 he died they could find no effects except two or three sheets of paper on which he had written his will. “He 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 the long, long days for them to be meicfy in, and the moon and the stars to wonder at. “I think,” said Sir James, “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.. The will referred to by Sir James Bari’ie was published a long time ago. It was written by one Charles Lounsberry, a member of the bar of Illinois. United States of America, who died in an asylum. It is in keeping with things that perhaps the sanest and most beautiful will ever made should have been the production of a lunatic, but how much more admirable was Lounsberry’s will than some of the embittered testaments of the eminently sane, the reader shall judge for himself. Here it is:— “I, Charles Lounsberry, 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 succeed ing men I leave to children inclusively, but only for the term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the field 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 over the giant trees. And I leave to children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the j night and the moon, and the trail of the Milky Way to wonder at, subject nevertheless to the rights hereinafter given to lovers. “I devise to boys jointly, all the useful idle fields and commons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim; all snow-clad j hills where one may coast, and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim winter comes, one may skate—to have and to hold 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 are no longer children, or youths, or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems 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 without title or diminution. “To our loved ones with snowy crowns I bequeath the happiness of! old age, the love and gratitude of | their children, until they fall asleep.” i