"Testator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the will concluded, he added, "There are some words here, at the corner of the parchment, which do not appear to be part of the will, as they are neither in the form of a codicil, nor is the signature of the testator affixed to them; but, to the best of my belief, they are in the handwriting of the deceased." As he spoke he showed the lines to Melmoth, who immediately recognized his uncle's hand (that perpendicular ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... strictly religious institutions are more liable than others to be, if not strictly speaking misappropriated, at least misdirected, though it may probably be unintentional, more especially when the religious views of the trustees differ from those of the testator. The trust in this particular instance being connected with the study of a language held in esteem by all religious denominations, the act becomes much aggravated, ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... coincide precisely with those of bequest. Just so much as the testator parts with the legatee obtains. When the bequest is unconditional, the new owner whom it creates steps into the precise position which the previous owner has vacated. Often, however, a legacy is qualified by conditions, and, among others, by this, that the ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... as closely as possible with her sister Elizabeth: they appeared together hand in hand. Jane Grey remained as a prisoner in the Tower, which she had entered as Queen. Never did the natural right of succession, as it was established by the testator of the inheritance and the Parliament, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... in her hand. It provided in the proper legal phraseology for an equal division of the testator's estate between the ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... Andrews thought he had provided for his relations by leaving to them certain leasehold interests connected with the Provost's estate. The law courts, however, held that these interests were not at the disposal of the testator, and handed them over to Hely Hutchinson, the next Provost. The disappointed relations then petitioned the Irish Parliament to redress this grievance by transferring to them the moneys designed by Andrews for the Observatory. It would not be right, they ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... which he had left, consisting mostly of realty valued at about $60,000, had not yet been distributed among the legatees, Eugene and Roswell M. Field and Mary French Field. To the last named one-fifth had been willed in recognition of the loving care she had bestowed upon the testator's two motherless sons, each of whom was to receive two-fifths of the father's estate. Eugene therefore looked forward to the possession of property worth something like $25,000. In St. Louis, in 1871, this was regarded as quite a large fortune. It would ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... whether good or bad, improves in character with every revolution of this little world around the sun, that heavenly example of subservience. And now Mr. Jellicorse was well convinced, as nothing had occurred to disturb that will, and the life of the testator had been sacrificed to it, and the devisees under it were his own good clients, and some of his finest turns of words were in it, and the preparation, execution, and attestation, in an hour and ten minutes of the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Termite termito. Terrace teraso. Terrestrial tera. Terrible, terrific terura. Terrify timegigi. Territory teritorio. Terror teruro. Terrorise terurigi. Test provi. Testament testamento. Testator testamentanto. Testify atesti. Testimonial atesto, rekomendo. Testy kolerema. Tetanus tetano. Tether ligilo. Text teksto. Textile teksa. Textual lauxteksta. Texture teksajxo. Thaler talero. Than ol. Thank danki. Thankfully danke. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... deny the fact of his oath—whatever its nature; he justifies its breach because it was taken against is will, and because it was in itself of no strength, as binding him to do impossible things. He does not deny Edward's earlier promise to William; but, as a testament is of no force while the testator liveth, he argues that it is cancelled by Edward's later nomination of himself. In truth there is hardly any difference between the disputants as to matters of fact. One side admits at least a plighting of homage on the part of Harold; the other side admits Harold's nomination ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... defended the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; [108] nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable orator. [109] Whatever was the motive of the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part of his estate: and in the course of two or three generations, the whole property of the subject must have gradually passed through the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... the trustees of Mr. Zephaniah Crypt's Charity, under the stimulus of a late visitation by commissioners, were beginning to apply long-accumulating funds to the rebuilding of the Yellow Coat School, which was henceforth to be carried forward on a greatly-extended scale, the testator having left no restrictions concerning the curriculum, but ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... her door, she applied herself to read the document. It was short and simple, and with the exception of a small legacy to Mr. Newton, left all the testator possessed to a man whose name was utterly unknown to her. Mr. Newton was the sole executor, and the will was ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... estate of L14,000 a year because by a mere mistake of the conveyancer one material word was omitted from the will, although the clearest possible evidence was offered showing the wishes of the testator.[40] Such lawyers argue that in will cases 'the true question is not what the testator intended to do, but what is the meaning of the words of the will,' and that the balance of advantages is in favour of a strict adherence to the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... father's death, and that he certainly, on glancing at it, had been very much astonished to see that that document was his father's will. Against that he declared that its contents did not astonish him in the slightest degree, that he himself knew of the testator's intentions, but that he certainly thought his father had entrusted the will to the care of Mr. Wethered, who did all ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... keeping, with its recent codicil, was opened and read. The will itself bore date about six years anterior to the testator's tragic death: it was very short, and, with the exception of a few legacies, of which the most important was L10,000 to his ward, the whole of his property was left to Richard Strahan, on the condition that he took the name and arms of Derval within a year from the date of Sir Philip's decease. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... if my lady was dead, or if Miss Rachel was dead, at the time of the testator's decease, for the Diamond being sent to Holland, in accordance with the sealed instructions originally deposited with it. The proceeds of the sale were, in that case, to be added to the money already left by the Will for the professorship ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... said the testator (who I have before said was a bit of a satirist,) "my share of the bank, and the whole or my fortune, legacies excepted, to"—(here Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy wiped his beautiful eyes with a cambric handkerchief, exquisitely brode) "my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... as those of the whole country, I recommend that at your present session you adopt such measures in order to carry into effect the Smithsonian bequest as in your judgment will be best calculated to consummate the liberal intent of the testator. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... Within a short time, usually thirty days, after the death of the testator, the executor or other custodian of the will presents it to the probate court with a petition that it be admitted to probate. (For form ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... "at present;" for it is only lately that I have been so called—having legislatively adopted this surname within the last year in order to receive a large inheritance left me by a distant male relative, Adolphus Simpson, Esq. The bequest was conditioned upon my taking the name of the testator,—the family, not the Christian name; my Christian name is Napoleon Bonaparte—or, more properly, these are my ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... send it to my aunt Harman?—She is very desirous to see it. Yet your character has so charmed her, that, though a stranger to you personally, she assents to the preference given you in that will, before she knows the testator's reasons for giving you ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... whom you might presently think of as an executor, I believe you will be impressed with the necessity for the continuity of service that can be offered only by a corporation. In many cases there are personal matters in the estate which a testator may believe can best be handled only by some of his friends. In such a case it is usual to join the individual executors with a ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... will, dated the 19th December following his discharge, he left a sum of L200 for the purchase of lands or tenements the rents of which were to be devoted to the preaching of a sermon on the 16th October of every year in the church of St. Catherine Cree in commemoration of the testator's escape from a lion whilst travelling in Africa. The sermon is preached to this day and is commonly known as the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... not necessarily a mechanical imitation of the past, but a genuine portrait of the permanent. It is, then, to the Primitive Church that we must look for the principles of reformation. If the meaning of a will is contested years after the testator's death, reference will be made, as far as possible, to the testator's contemporaries, or to writings which might best interpret his intentions. This is what the English Reformers of the sixteenth century tell us that ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... case of a will recently admitted to probate it was stated that the testator had disposed of over seven hundred thousand pounds in less than a hundred words. It is not expected that the Ministry of Munitions will take ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... estate to his three sisters. The news of this might have been expected to make Johnson violent in wrath. But no, for some reason he grew violent only in laughter, and insisted thenceforth on calling that gentleman The Testator and chaffing him without mercy. 'I daresay he thinks he has done a mighty thing. He won't stay till he gets home to his seat in the country, to produce this wonderful deed: he'll call up the landlord of the first inn on the road; and after a suitable preface upon mortality and the uncertainty ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... and witnessed, and bore a notarial seal. It was dated in the hand of the testator, in addition to the acknowledgment of the notary, all ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... manner that astonished Mr. Cramp. "If the will be forged, who is the forger? Certainly not my father; for he inherited the property from his elder brother, who died insane. The will is in his favour, and not in my father's. Besides, neither of them held any correspondence with the testator for twenty years; he died abroad, and the will was sent to England after his death. Would any one there do a gratuitous service to persons they had never seen? Where could be the reason—the motive? How is it, that, till now, Alfred Bond urged no claim. There are reasons," ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... say that from Mrs. Baker's conversation it was certain that the testator's directions had been carried out, and that the great bulk of these papers ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... myself this did not look very like the letter of a suicide, I glanced through the will, as the testator seemed to have wished that I should do so. It was short, but properly drawn, signed, and witnessed, and bequeathed a sum of 9,000, which was on deposit at the Standard Bank, together with all his other property, real and personal, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... reason assigned in that document, viz., that on the 3d of July in that year, was passed the important Act of 7 Will. IV., and 1 Vict. c. 26, which rendered it necessary for all wills to be signed by the testator in the presence of two or more attesting witnesses, none having till then been necessary in the case of wills of personal estate, which alone Mr. Smith left behind him. This document contains some characteristic touches. It begins in this old fashioned and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... has to work out the result as an arithmetician works out a sum. Among the irrelevant considerations are frequently some moral aspects of the case. A judge, for example, decides a will to be valid or invalid without asking whether the testator acted justly or unjustly in a moral sense, but simply whether his action was legal or illegal. He cannot go behind the law, even from motives of benevolence or general maxims of justice, without being an unjust judge. Cases may arise, indeed, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... wheedling—always with the prospect of the old man dying before she could get him to the point again of doing as she wished? The very existence of the second will was a menace. It only needed that the would-be heirs of the Prince should hear of it, and there would be a swoop on their part to rescue the testator from her clutches. In the balance against 2,000,000 francs and some halfdozen castles with their estates the only wonder is that any reasonable person, knowing the history of Sophie Dawes, should hesitate about the value ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... a dirty trick; and I was a younger man at the time, and it struck me that if your father chose to try the case, the testator's intentions being clear, and instructions in his own hand extant, it was ten to one it might be given in his favour. I even took a counsel's opinion, thinking that at any rate an intimation that the case was to be tried before possession was given up might bring Fulbert to terms with regard ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all others, and, consequently, in such a case, apportions his property according to the Statute of Distributions. But the fact of a marriage alone, without a child, is no revocation; and though both facts conjoin to revoke the will, yet such revocation is only on the presumption that the testator could not have intended his will to remain good. If, on the other hand, from expressions used by him, and other proof, it be made to appear unquestionable that it was his intent that his will should continue in force, the marriage and birth of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... lord was married on the 8th of May, 1728, and the father's will is dated the 6th of Nov. following. 'Having,' says the testator, 'never observed that my son hath showed much taste or inclination, either for the entertainment or knowledge which study and learning afford, I give and bequeath all my books and mathematical instruments ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... the letters of his children. They were emphatic evidences of their attitude toward him from first to last. There was no such thing as going behind them. It might be possible to produce proof that the testator was unsound of mind, but it would never be possible to wipe out the written declarations of his mentally perfect son and daughters. In these delectable missives they completely disowned him as a father; ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... 'Athenaeum,' which Robert thought out of taste until he came to understand the motive of it—that there had been (two days previous to its appearance) a brutal attack on the will, to the effect that literary persons had been altogether overlooked in the dispositions of the testator, in consequence of his, being a disappointed literary pretender himself. Therefore we were brought forward, you see, together with Barry Cornwall and Dr. Southey, producing a wrong impression on the other side—only I can't blame ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... to let me perceive that he disapproved of the will. So far I do not complain of him—he had, no doubt, good reason for the view he took. But, in expressing his surprise "at this extraordinary proof of the testator's interest in a perfect stranger to the family," he hinted his suspicion of an influence, on my part, exercised over Sir Gervase, so utterly shameful, that I cannot dwell on the subject. The language, I should add, was cunningly guarded. Even I could see that it would bear more than ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... spot for such an office, but I said nothing. Gerald and my mother, the lawyer (a neighbouring attorney, named Oswald), and myself were the only persons present. Mr. Oswald hemmed thrice, and broke the seal. After a preliminary, strongly characteristic of the testator, he came to the disposition of the estates. I had never once, since my poor uncle's death, thought upon the chances of his will; indeed, knowing myself so entirely his favourite, I could not, if I had thought upon them, have entertained a doubt as to their result. ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not married yet; although upon Uncle Reuben's death she came into all his property; except, indeed, 2000 pounds, which Uncle Ben, in his driest manner, bequeathed "to Sir John Ridd, the worshipful knight, for greasing of the testator's boots." And he left almost a mint of money, not from the mine, but from the shop, and the good use of usury. For the mine had brought in just what it cost, when the vein of gold ended suddenly; leaving ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of my existence," declared the lawyer, with exasperation. "Those women are determined to obtain a much greater share of the estate than belongs to them or than the testator ever intended. Their testimony, I believe, is false. But as the apportionment of the property of the deceased Mr. Ellison must be decided by verbal rather than written evidence, the story those women tell—and stick to—bears ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... reputation for strict honesty, he had become a sort of agent and business manager for the miners. He was one of the few men Robert Palmer trusted; therefore he received the document from Keeler's hand without surprise. But he could not repress a smile at the testator's extreme caution and resolved forthwith to ask for a list ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... door-post, but in lieu of it stood the name of a friend who had died in the chambers, and had given him the furniture. The story arose out of the furniture, and was to this effect:- Let the former holder of the chambers, whose name was still upon the door and door-post, be Mr. Testator. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... read amidst sundry interjections and expressions of anger from George, which it is not necessary to repeat. Nor need I trouble my readers with the will at length. It began by expressing the testator's great desire that his property might descend in his own family, and that the house might be held and inhabited by some one bearing the name of Vavasor. He then declared that he felt himself obliged to pass over his natural heir, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... a term used in law in various connexions. The acknowledgment of a debt, if in writing signed by the debtor or his agent, is sufficient to take it out of the Statutes of Limitations. The signature to a will by a testator, if not made in the presence of two witnesses, may be afterwards acknowledged in their presence. The acknowledgment by a woman married before 1882 of deeds for the conveyance of real property not her separate property, requires to be made by her before a judge of the High Court or ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of copyholds and customary freeholds to dispose of them by will, which could not now be done. As the law stood, a person could only bequeath such real property as he was possessed of at the time of making his will; but his lordship said he would enable the testator to dispose of any he might acquire subsequently to the execution of the will. At present no person under the age of twenty-one could make a will: his lordship proposed to give the power of disposing of personal property to those who were beyond the age of seventeen. With respect to witnesses ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... however, obtains no more than to this extent: (1) The cantonal testamentary laws almost invariably prescribe division of property among all the children—as in the code Napoleon, which prevails in French Switzerland, and which permits the testator to dispose of only a third of his property, the rest being divided among all the heirs. (2) Highways, including the railways, are under immediate government control. (3) The greater part of the forests ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... intentions in favor of a nephew on his father's side,—an amiable young man, living abroad,—and from whom he had been estranged in consequence of a family quarrel of long standing. The young heir comes to the testator's house, is received with great affection, and is suddenly cut off by illness. The testator then returns to his will in favor of his cousin, who resides abroad. His acute and active brother-in-law has taken the management of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... legacies granted by those additional writings were for some time of no validity. To confirm this, we are told that the daughter of Lentulus discharged certain legacies, which, being given by codicil, she was not bound to pay. In time, however, codicils, as an addition made by the testator to his will, grew into use, and the legacies thereby granted were confirmed. This might be the case in the sixth year of Vespasian, when the Dialogue passed between the parties; but it is, notwithstanding, highly probable, that the word codicilli means, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... the sustentation of a grave or monument is not sufficient, in the present day, to remunerate residents in London for looking after it, and the money has been transferred to the parish in which the testator lies, and has become the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... providing for his daughters and his numerous foundations. The Venetians received under this testament a sum of 100,000 ducats, together with all arrears of pay due to him, and 10,000 ducats owed him by the Duke of Ferrara. It set forth the testator's intention that this money should be employed in defence of the Christian faith against the Turk. One condition was attached to the bequest. The legatees were to erect a statue to Colleoni on the Piazza of S. Mark. This, however, involved ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... must be executed by the Testator in the presence of two witnesses, who must sign their names, addresses, and occupations at the end of the Will in the presence of the Testator. The best method to adopt for a Testator to be quite sure that his Will is executed properly, is for him to take the Will and his ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... to trouble you with the provisions of the will in detail. There were the widow and three surviving children to be provided for. The widow received a life-interest only in a portion of the testator's property. The remaining portion was divided between Andrew and Selina—two-thirds to the brother; one-third to the sister. On the mother's death, the money from which her income had been derived was to go to Andrew and Selina, in the same relative proportions as before—five thousand pounds having ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... immediate profits to be then likewise paid to my two daughters by my executor who is desired to retain the same in his hands until that time. Witness my hand Henry Fielding. Signed and acknowledged as his last will and testament by the within named testator in the presence of Margaret Collier, Richd. Boor, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... has never been able to treat ancient endowments made under the pressure of its own intolerance with the same respect as if the donors had been really free—free to know, and free to act. The presumption that the donor or testator, if he were living now, would have acted far otherwise than he did, and that in altering his destination the State may be carrying out what he really would have wished, is in such cases by no means without foundation. Knox and others reveal to us that this ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... the "expert" testimony of a witness who, it was afterward proven, was unable to write even so much as his own name. In the litigation attending the disposal of large mining interests held at Butte, Montana, the court permitted testimony in regard to the handwriting of the testator from a witness who admitted that he had seen the testator write but once, and that in lead pencil over twenty ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... a little traveling-desk which he remembered, but beyond that she knew nothing. Maurice wrote to Mr. Burnham, the family lawyer, and the question now was, what had become of the desk? The effects of the testator had been sold at auction, but as they had been largely bought by relatives, Maurice believed that it would not be difficult to trace the ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... of aches and pains from head to foot; full of fancies and caprices; full of spleen, distrust, suspicion, and dislike. To cancel old wills, and invent new ones, is at last the sole business of such a testator's existence; and relations and friends (some of whom have been bred up distinctly to inherit a large share of the property, and have been, from their cradles, specially disqualified from devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on that account) ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... swoop, and pounce, and snarl, and scream, and tear. The half-picked bones are gathered and burned by the outcast keepers of the temple (not priests), who receive from the nearest relative of the infatuated testator a small fee for that final service; and so a Buddhist vow is fulfilled, and a Buddhist ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... presence here. A sixth person will join us shortly: one of my detectives, whom I instructed to make the first inquiries about the Roussel family and who will give you the result of his investigations. But, for the moment, we must proceed in accordance with the testator's directions. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... everybody. The omission of a word or letter in a will, they will scan with the closest scrutiny; and while I could see no use for any but the most concise and simple terms to express the wishes of the testator, a lawyer would be satisfied with nothing but the most precise and formal instrument, stuffed full ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... property, the mansion and lands of Forest-hill, might ultimately be recovered. Though these are entirely omitted in the Particular of his Estate given in a month before to the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee for Compositions, they figure in his will so expressly that one sees the testator did not consider them quite lost. This, followed by the kindly mention of Sir Robert Pye in the end of the will, and the appointment of that knight as one of the overseers to assist the executor in carrying out the will, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... 1888, in the Court of Justice, London, before Mr. Justice Chitty, on an enquiry being made as to the estate of William Thompson Whelpton, deceased, at the instance of the Rev. Henry Robert Whelpton, and Stephen Whelpton; when the Court declared that the direction in the will of the testator, as to the endowment of the charity, was a "valid charitable bequest of 1,000 pounds," and the money "invested in three per cents. Consols, for the following purposes": (1) for the repair of the alms-houses; (2) to pay each occupant 3s. 6d. per week; (3) in case of there being any surplus, to pay ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... having required silence, began to read the settlement aloud in a slow, steady, business—like tone. The group around, in whose eyes hope alternately awakened and faded, and who were straining their apprehensions to get at the drift of the testator's meaning through the mist of technical language in which the conveyance had involved it, might have made a ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... never on particularly intimate terms with the testator, had not thought of the will, and the idea that he might have an interest in it never crossed his mind. Five thousand! It is said of drowning people that they see the whole panorama of their lives in the last seconds of consciousness; in the instant's pause that followed the manager's ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... strip the parent, as has been done in France, of one of the chief elements of parental authority, by depriving him of the power of disposing of his property at his death. In the United States there are no restrictions on the powers of a testator. In this respect, as in almost all others, it is easy to perceive, that if the political legislation of the Americans is much more democratic than that of the French, the civil legislation of the latter is infinitely ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... covenant of grace, that must stand—"Brethren, I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed [as this is, by the death of the testator, (Heb 9:16,17)] no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto"; therefore man must be saved by virtue of a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... person, with the love of money—Satan's sure mark—deeply stamped upon his ungainly countenance,) was closeted with his attorney; the latter of whom was in the act of taking the necessary instructions for making the rich man's will—a kind of job the intended testator by no means relished, and which no power on earth, save the intense hatred he bore to the persons upon whom his property would otherwise devolve, could have forced him to ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... no affair of mine, and yet I feel concerned. I'll tell you why. That footman was a gentleman born. Moreover, he was down on his luck. He didn't look like a fellow who'd run through money, and I think the old testator was pretty rich. He gave that impression. And for a will made in such circumstances to go astray it would be easy enough—obviously. The devil of it is, except for the name of Lyveden, I ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... with Matthew Hanson, in equal shares. And I appoint the said Sarah Ellen Hanson, or in the case of her death, her eldest child, the executor of this my will; and I revoke all former wills. Dated this twenty-seventh day of August, 1904. James Gilverthwaite. Signed by the testator in ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... Associated Words: intestate, intestacy, testate, testacy, testamentary, testator, testatrix, surrogate, bequeathable, bequeather, bequeathment, bequest, codicil, devisee, devisor, intestable, legacy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the horse-stealer's residuary legatee, recovering from the first shock of his surprise, fell into the grim humor of the situation, and proceeded to carry out to the letter the testator's whimsical request. Thus it was that the skull came to secure an engagement to play the role of poor Yorick in J. B. Booth's company of strolling players, and to continue a while longer to glimmer behind the footlights in the hands of his ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... personal friends of the testator. The career of John Strachan has already been outlined. Although it was not specified in the will that he should be connected with the proposed College, it may be assumed that because of his close friendship, his marriage connection, and his established ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... as to how best to give effect to a malignity whose direction was constantly being modified. He had had instructions for drawing a will a dozen times over. But the process had always been arrested by the intending testator. ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... aisles, and transept, but here also old age and storms have brought down many of the trees. On the right, opposite to the Wilderness, there is an orchard, the subject of much legend. One popular story is that this orchard formed the subject of a bequest to "St. John's College," and that the testator, being an Oxford man, was held by the Courts to have intended to benefit the College in his own University. As a matter of prosaic fact, the orchard originally belonged to Merton College, Oxford, ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... written and apparently genuine, they could usually stand. To-day the deaf are practically everywhere held to be quite capable in this respect, and probably nowhere would a will be set aside for reason of the deafness of the testator alone. Likewise the deaf are now generally held capable of entering into all ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... the L100 in discharge of her marriage portion, and the L50 on her surrendering her share in the copyhold tenement in Stratford-on-Avon (once Getley's) to her sister, Susanna Hall. Another L150[171] was to be paid Judith, or any of her heirs alive at the date of three years after the testator's death. If she had died without issue at that date, L100 thereof was to go to Elizabeth Hall, and L50 to his sister Joan and her children. If Judith were alive, the stock was to be invested by the executors, and only the interest ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... Dobbin was appointed executor, "and as out of his kindness and bounty he maintained my grandson and my son's widow with his own private funds when they were otherwise without means of support" (the testator went on to say), "I hereby thank him heartily, and beseech him to accept such a sum as may be sufficient to purchase his commission as a Lieutenant Colonel, or to be disposed of in any way he may think fit." When Amelia heard ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... may learn how Noel d'Arnaye came to be immortalized by a legacy of two hundred and twenty blows from an osierwhip—since (as the testator piously affirms), ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... Mr. Kenge, "it is a will of later date than any in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator's handwriting. It is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks of fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... population of Ireland. This Bill was obnoxious in all it's provisions, but the enactment which was received with most scorn was the clause that annulled a Catholic charitable bequest, unless it had been duly made six months at least before the decease of the testator. The prohibition was attributed to an insulting assumption that the Catholic clergymen abused their influence over dying penitents, for sacerdotal or religious, if not for personal aggrandisement, and the impeachment was repelled ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... more among living men. And what made his disappearance the more mysterious was that he had actually at this time just inherited largely from his namesake, Mr. Gaunt of Biggleswade; and his own interest, and that of the other legatees, required his immediate presence. Mr. Atkins, the testator's solicitor, advertised for this unfortunate gentleman; but he did not appear to claim his fortune. Then plain men began to put this and that together, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... drafters of the new Code scrupled not to assail that maxim, and to claim for the father larger discretionary powers over the disposal of his property. They demanded that the disposable share should vary according to the wealth of the testator—a remarkable proposal, which proves him to be anything but the unflinching champion of revolutionary legal ideas which popular French ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... rich, and acted as one of the seven Epulones, who superintended the feasts of the gods, called Lectisternia, and Pervigilia. He bequeathed his whole fortune to his friend M. Agrippa, who was so generous as to give it up to the relations of the testator. The monument of Cecilia Metella, commonly called Capo di Bove, is without the walls on the Via Appia. This lady was daughter of Metellus Creticus, and wife to Crassus, who erected this noble monument to her memory. It consisted of two orders, or stories, the first of which was a square ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... poetess Priest priestess Prince princess Prior prioress Prophet prophetess Proprietor proprietress Protector protectress Shepherd shepherdess Songster songstress Sorcerer sorceress Suiter suitress Sultan sultaness or sultana Tiger tigress Testator testatrix Traitor traitress Tutor tutoress Tyrant tyranness Victor victress Viscount viscountess ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... was frequently mentioned favourably in these old wills. Another Cuckfield testator, in 1539, left to the high altar, "for tythes and oblacions negligently forgotten, sixpence." The same student of the Calendar of Sussex Wills in the District Probate Registry at Lewes, between 1541 and 1652, which the British Record Society have just published, copies ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... sehntehnt'so sheriff | skabeno | skahbeh'no statement | deklaro (skribita) | dehklah'ro (written) | | (skreebee'tah) sue, to | persekuti | pehrsehkoo'tee suit | proceso | prohtseh'so summons (of court) | asigno | ahseeg'no testator | testamentinto | tehstah-mehntin'toh theft | sxtelo | shteh'lo thief | sxtel-isto, -into | shtehl-ist'oh, -in'toh trial | proceso | prohtseh'so verdict | verdikto | vehrdeek'toh witness | atestanto | ahteh-stahn'toh writ | asignordono ...
— Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation • William W. Mann
... considerable sum for establishing a fund, the interest of which was to be expended, annually forever, in preparing a Christmas Banquet for ten of the most miserable persons that could be found. It seemed not to be the testator's purpose to make these half a score of sad hearts merry, but to provide that the stern or fierce expression of human discontent should not be drowned, even for that one holy and joyful day, amid the acclamations of festal gratitude which ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... honour by "demonstrating" on such a crazy body as mine, and it will give me pleasure to anticipate this posthumous revenge and insult inflicted upon that which has caused me so much suffering in this life. Such bequests are not common; reversionary benefits contingent upon the death of the testator are indeed dangerous to announce in many cases: of this we have a remarkable instance in the habits of a Roman prince, who used, upon any notification made to him by rich persons that they had left him a handsome estate in their wills, to express his entire satisfaction at such ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... special permission of the sovereign and of Government; and then the estate is placed under a special court. Without special permission from this court neither an alteration of the Act can take place, nor is sale or mortgage allowed. Hungarian law also interposes some restrictions in the case of a testator, who must leave by will at least half his property to his children. And with regard to women, the law with us is specially careful to preserve a woman's legal existence ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... mentioned in the law of Moses, Numb. xxxv. 19. In the Roman law also, under the head of "those who on account of unworthiness are deprived of their inheritance," it is pronounced, that "such heirs as are proved to have neglected revenging the testator's death, shall be obliged to restore the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus |
