Besides, the words Legacy,
Bequest, go side by side with the words, Death, Funeral.
He was neither so unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew;--but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the
bequest. Mr.
The term he used was odd, for it was 'bequeathed,' but no such
bequest of Mesmer was ever made known.
The amiable old gentleman, it seemed, had intended to leave the whole to the Royal Humane Society, and had indeed executed a will to that effect; but the Institution, having been unfortunate enough, a few months before, to save the life of a poor relation to whom he paid a weekly allowance of three shillings and sixpence, he had, in a fit of very natural exasperation, revoked the
bequest in a codicil, and left it all to Mr Godfrey Nickleby; with a special mention of his indignation, not only against the society for saving the poor relation's life, but against the poor relation also, for allowing himself to be saved.
It was well worth adding to the poet's great
bequest to English literature.
I could ascertain nothing in relation to it, except that the
bequest was accompanied by some cynical remarks, to the effect that the testator would feel happy if his legacy were instrumental in reviving the dormant interest of only one member of Doctor Softly's family in the fortunes of the hopeful young gentleman who had run away from home.
"There was just such an informality in the terms of the
bequest as to give me no hope from law.
Why then should you expect me to pen this kind of affidavit, which has no object but to keep up a foolish partiality and secure a foolish
bequest?"
At the end of a year he would be free to return to the cloisters, for such had been his father's
bequest. A monkish upbringing, one year in the world after the age of twenty, and then a free selection one way or the other--it was a strange course which had been marked out for him.
and take with thee This curse I leave thee as my last
bequest:-- Never to win by arms thy native land, No, nor return to Argos in the Vale, But by a kinsman's hand to die and slay Him who expelled thee.
An awkward interest (awkward because romantic) attaches to Miss Bud in the minds of the young ladies, on account of its being known to them that a husband has been chosen for her by will and
bequest, and that her guardian is bound down to bestow her on that husband when he comes of age.
'If Gilbert Clennam, reduced to imbecility, at the point of death, and labouring under the delusion of some imaginary relenting towards a girl of whom he had heard that his nephew had once had a fancy for her which he had crushed out of him, and that she afterwards drooped away into melancholy and withdrawal from all who knew her--if, in that state of weakness, he dictated to me, whose life she had darkened with her sin, and who had been appointed to know her wickedness from her own hand and her own lips, a
bequest meant as a recompense to her for supposed unmerited suffering; was there no difference between my spurning that injustice, and coveting mere money--a thing which you, and your comrades in the prisons, may steal from anyone?'