Athenian Will

Simplest way for John Doe to draw a will that will be admitted to probate is for him to call in two friends, tell them what he is doing, ask them to witness his signature to the following testament: "I give everything to my wife, Mary Doe, in the event of my death and appoint her my executrix." No such simple will was one which a Philadelphia lawyer named Solomon L. Fridenberg brought before Surrogate James A. Delehanty last week in Manhattan and asked him to interpret. Lawyer Fridenberg admitted he had drawn the seven-page closely-written document with five codicils for a client, since deceased. What he wanted to know from the Surrogate was: Did the will create trusts or did it grant annuities? Reading the will put Surrogate Delehanty in fine rhetorical fettle. Said he: "The court perceives the effect of that fine frenzy in composition which on one midsummer's night the Duke of Athens advanced as the genesis of poetry. In the rounded periods of these instruments there is proof, too, of an internal emotion which possessed the draftsman and which at the time of composition must have disinclined him to any prosaic inquiry as to what the language really meant." Then he told the confused Philadelphia lawyer that the provisions of the will set up separate trusts.

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