Romance of Making Wills

Some time ago I had occasion to go to Doctors’ Commons to look at a will of a dead man. The hand that signed it was in the grave long before—dust, perhaps; but the record of the will which animated that hand was there among those dusty folios, engrossed in an almost undecipherable hand, which tell how all the real property in the county has been disposed of over and over again. I had no difficulty in finding it, for I had a note of the precise day the deceased died on. It is unnecessary to say anything about the contents of the will, however, for they have no relation to what I was writing. It is the only date which I have any business with. The will was dated the day before the man died. I, of course, had often heard of men making their wills when they were just at death’s door, without any particular thought being excited; but this time I was surprised, as a single fact very often does surprise us, when we have passed by a host of similar ones unnoticed. I knew the man who had made that will. He was a shrewd, prudent, sharp lawyer, who had risen from nothing to be a man of immense wealth. If he was distinguished for any qualities in particular, it was for punctuality and promptitude. None of the clerks of his office were ever five minutes too late. That was an offence not to be forgiven. No one ever knew him to be behindhand at an appointment, or to let business go undone. His housekeeper, who managed his bachelor home for many years, only kept her place by being exact as to time. Yet this man had not made his will till a few hours before his death; and, therefore, the possession of his property formed the subject of a very flourishing lawsuit.

When I went out of that dark, dismal catacomb of dead men’s wills, I went on thinking of all the similar cases of procrastination which I knew or had heard of—and they were not a few—for this was the experience of one who was a law clerk… Read More