The World's Richest Legacy.

Immured in an Asylum, a True Son of Nature Who Had Won Distinction at the Bar Wrote a Will, Which Only the Divine Surrogate Can Set Aside, Bequeathing Priceless Possessions to Mankind.

How few men know their riches! What is ours is ours only in so far as we are conscious of it, and so that which we accept without thought, which has no especial meaning to us, is not a real possession. You may have three or four hundred leaves of paper, covered with rows of printed characters and bound together between boards of leather, and yet you may not own a book.

Do you look upon the mountain and the stream and exclaim: "These are mine!" If not, then you have ignored Nature's dower to you. Do you realize that your individual possession in art is as broad as art itself? If not, you are refusing man's free gift to man. It is easy for almost any man or woman to be rich; the only thing that is hard is to learn to know real gold when you see it.

The most sensible will ever written was made by an insane man. He was Charles Lounsberry, once a prominent member of the Chicago bar, who in his later years lost his mind and was committed to the Cook County Asylum, at Dunning, where he died penniless. If he had lost his mind, he had kept his heart, or at least in his last moments he was endowed with a lucidity that was higher than logic. For this strange man, penniless though he was, knew that he was yet rich, and he made a will which, as the Chicago Record-Herald said, was "framed with such perfection of form and detail that no flaw could be found in its legal phraseology or matters."

Inasmuch as poor, mad Charles Lounsberry knew gold from dross, we here reprint his curious and interesting will.

I, Charles Lounsberry, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do hereby make and publish this, my last will and testament, in order, as justly as may be, to distribute my interest in the world among succeeding men.

That part of my interest, which is known in law and recognized in the sheep-bound volumes as my property, being inconsiderable and of none account, I make no disposition of in this, my will. My right to live, being but a life estate, is not at my disposal, but these things excepted, all else in the world I now proceed to devise and bequeath.

Item: I give to good fathers and mothers in trust for their children, all good little words of praise and encouragement, and all quaint pet names and endearments, and I charge said parents to use them justly, but generously, as the needs of their children shall require.

Item: I leave to children inclusively, but only for the term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the fields, and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely according to the customs of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. And I devise to children the banks of the brooks and the golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors of the willows that dip therein and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees. And I leave to children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night, and the moon, and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at, but subject, nevertheless, to the rights hereinafter given to lovers.

Item: I devise to boys jointly, all the useful, idle fields and commons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim; all snow-clad hills where one may coast; and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim winter comes, one may skate, to have and to hold these same for the period of their boyhood. And all meadows, with the clover blossoms and butterflies thereof; the woods with their appurtenances, the squirrels and the birds and echoes and strange noises, and all distant places which may be visited, together with the adventures there found. And I give to said boys each his own place at the fireside at night, with all the pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance, and without any encumbrance of care.

Item: To lovers, I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need, as the stars of the sky, the red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else they may desire to figure to each other the lastingness and beauty of their love.

Item: To young men, jointly, I devise and bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness and undaunted confidence in their own strength. Though they are rude, I leave to them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively, I give all merry songs and brave choruses to sing with lusty voices.

Item: And to those who are no longer children, or youths, or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poems, if there be others, to the end that they may live the old days over again, freely and fully without title or diminution.

Item: To our loved ones with snowy crowns, I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children until they fall asleep.