Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-06-30
Making a Will.

IL one could dispose OF ones personal pe-
culiarities by will, as of ones personal prop.
erty, what very different state of affairs
from the present we should have about us
And how quite to the fancy could we make
the world in the next generation, if 1t were
possible for us to indite important docu-
ments regulating the affairs of society after
our demise much more thoroughly and mi
nutely than we do now after, let us say,
the following fashion al, So-and-so, being
Of sound mind and body at this writing, do
now make this my last will and testament.
And hereby give and bequeath to my
daughter, Margaret, all my right and title
to the pale pink of my complexion, aud to
the said Margaret also give the high car.
riage of head; and to my second daughter,
Louise, give and bequeath my low fore.
head, the straight outline of my nose, my
pensiveness, and the mole on my left cheek
and to my daughter Rachel give the brown
Of my eyes and the length of my eyeashes,
and to the aforesaid Rachel give also the
old charity / inherited from my grand.
mother, but never used. do also give and
bequeath to my son Lawrence my upper lip,
as well as my Incidence, my high temper
and my selfishness, and commend him par.
ticularly to the care Of his sisters and
give and bequeath to his little daughter
Jane, together with the arch of my eve
brows, my emotional insanity, and all that
belongs to the said emotional insanity and
II my granddaughter, the said Jane, does
not survive me, or dies without issue, then I
desire the said emotional insanity, together
with my kleptomania, my love of scandal,
and my browbeating of dependents, to be
committed to the flames and | further
wish, in any event, that my salt-rheum aud
scrofua shall be tied up in a parcel and
buried in the same grave with me-" But as
1t is, and strange and unaccountable as it is,
while beauty of the body is not transmitted
and there is no law for that dark point yet
known, moral beauty is almost as sure to
tell in the descendant as moral ugliness.
We may dye black our fl ,ming red hair for
long years before our daughter Margaret
was born, but unless the more vital current
of some stronger ancestor in her veins over
comes it, Margaret is pretty sure TO have red
hair in spite of our dye yet, on the other
hand, il we wash white the stains upon our
soul of selfishness and falsehood before her
time, Margaret is very sure to inherit soul
When one reflects on this last statement, it
will be felt that, after all, certain things of
which we had not dreamed it, are to be dis
posed of by will, and that our power over
them is such that we can transmit them or
destroy them, let the heir have them with
interest," or completely disinherit him. Have
we virtue that is distinctly our own, and
not an accident, or have we even an acci-
dental virtue? The fostering of that vir-
tue, If it be an accident, will make it our
own, and will make it not only an increased
and accumulating thing in itself, but will
really make it ten other virtues. Aud if we
have sin, constant repression of it may so
diminish it, as bad debt is diminished,
that it may cease to exist before the heir
comes in question, or may be so insignificant
that it amounts to nothing when he does
come into his own. Who that remembers
this, and the infinite peace and beauty that
virtues will give, and the infinite misery and
woe that sins, swollen as they go on from
one TO another, cannot but create-the covet-
BUSINESS that in grandchild becomes theft,
and the jealousy and suspicion that sow the
seeds of madness, the ill-temper that one
day thrusts out the red hand of the muir
derer-oan, on recognizing them, do any
thing but crush and tread the terrible traits
out of existence? Some one has said that
there are few more sad or solemn moments
in life, more sad and solemn for the bright
ness in which their gloom is set, than that
Of the young mother who, after the first
rapture of safe possession of her child is
past reflects that what she is her child is,
at least so far as her accountability goes,
-and lies helplessly to see her faults and fol-
lies faunt themselves in her face; she may
believe in saving grace, but she sees that
her child will have need to take of that
grace by main strength if he would escape
the evil she herself, who loves him as her
life, may have wrought in him she atones
in that hour for years of error, and she
watches in the after-years with many
shudder for the first appearance Of the ugly
heads of the evil things she saw in that
dark hour, as a hunter watches for his prey.
1t would have been easier to stamp out
those evil things at first in herself, had she
bethought herself in season, and known the
way.-Hdrper's Bazdr.