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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472508" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Parson Turell’s Legacy</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A MATHEMATICAL STORY</div><div style="margin:10px 0">FACTS respecting an old arm-chair.<br>At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there.<br>Seems but little the worse for wear.<br>That 's remarkable when I say<br>It was old in President Holyoke's day.<br>(One of his boys, perhaps you know,<br>Died, _at one hundred_, years ago.)<br>He took lodgings for rain or shine<br>Under green bed-clothes in '69.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.--<br>Born there? Don't say so! I was, too.<br>(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,--<br>Standing still, if you must have proof.--<br>'Gambrel?--Gambrel?'--Let me beg<br>You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,--<br>First great angle above the hoof,--<br>That 's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.)<br>Nicest place that ever was seen,--<br>Colleges red and Common green,<br>Sidewalks brownish with trees between.<br>Sweetest spot beneath the skies<br>When the canker-worms don't rise,--<br>When the dust, that sometimes flies<br>Into your mouth and ears and eyes,<br>In a quiet slumber lies,<br>_Not_ in the shape of umbaked pies<br>Such as barefoot children prize.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A kind of harbor it seems to be,<br>Facing the flow of a boundless sea.<br>Rows of gray old Tutors stand<br>Ranged like rocks above the sand;<br>Rolling beneath them, soft and green,<br>Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,--<br>One wave, two waves, three waves, four,--<br>Sliding up the sparkling floor.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then it ebbs to flow no more,<br>Wandering off from shore to shore<br>With its freight of golden ore!<br>Pleasant place for boys to play;--<br>Better keep your girls away;<br>Hearts get rolled as pebbles do<br>Which countless fingering waves pursue,<br>And every classic beach is strown<br>With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But this is neither here nor there;<br>I'm talking about an old arm-chair.<br>You 've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL?<br>Over at Medford he used to dwell;<br>Married one of the Mathers' folk;<br>Got with his wife a chair of oak,--<br>Funny old chair with seat like wedge,<br>Sharp behind and broad front edge,--<br>One of the oddest of human things,<br>Turned all over with knobs and rings,--<br>But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,--<br>Fit for the worthies of the land,--<br>Chief Justice Sewall a cause to try in,<br>Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in.<br>Parson Turell bequeathed the same<br>To a certain student,--SMITH by name;<br>These were the terms, as we are told:<br>'Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde;<br>When he doth graduate, then to passe<br>To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe.<br>On payment of '--(naming a certain sum)--<br>'By him to whom ye Chaire shall come;<br>He to ye oldest Senior next,<br>And soe forever,'--(thus runs the text,)--<br>'But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime,<br>That being his Debte for use of same.'<br>Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS,<br>And took his money,--five silver crowns.<br>Brown delivered it up to MOORE,<br>Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four.<br>Moore made over the chair to LEE,<br>Who gave him crowns of silver three.<br>Lee conveyed it unto DREW,<br>And now the payment, of course, was two.<br>Drew gave up the chair to DUNN,--<br>All he got, as you see, was one.<br>Dunn released the chair to HALL,<br>And got by the bargain no crown at all.<br>And now it passed to a second BROWN,<br>Who took it and likewise claimed a crown.<br>When Brown conveyed it unto WARE,<br>Having had one crown, to make it fair,<br>He paid him two crowns to take the chair;<br>And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,)<br>He paid one POTTER, who took it, three.<br>Four got ROBINSON; five got Dix;<br>JOHNSON primus demanded six;<br>And so the sum kept gathering still<br>Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When paper money became so cheap,<br>Folks would n't count it, but said 'a heap,'<br>A certain RICHARDS,--the books declare,--<br>(A. M. in '90? I've looked with care<br>Through the Triennial,--name not there,)--<br>This person, Richards, was offered then<br>Eightscore pounds, but would have ten;<br>Nine, I think, was the sum he took,--<br>Not quite certain,--but see the book.<br>By and by the wars were still,<br>But nothing had altered the Parson's will.<br>The old arm-chair was solid yet,<br>But saddled with such a monstrous debt!<br>Things grew quite too bad to bear,<br>Paying such sums to get rid of the chair<br>But dead men's fingers hold awful tight,<br>And there was the will in black and white,<br>Plain enough for a child to spell.<br>What should be done no man could tell,<br>For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse,<br>And every season but made it worse.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As a last resort, to clear the doubt,<br>They got old GOVERNOR HANCOCK out.<br>The Governor came with his Lighthorse Troop<br>And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop;<br>Halberds glittered and colors flew,<br>French horns whinnied and trumpets blew,<br>The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth,<br>And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath;<br>So he rode with all his band,<br>Till the President met him, cap in hand.<br>The Governor 'hefted' the crowns, and said,--<br>'A will is a will, and the Parson's dead.'<br>The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,--<br>'There is your p'int. And here 's my fee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'These are the terms you must fulfil,--<br>On such conditions I BREAK THE WILL!'<br>The Governor mentioned what these should be.<br>(Just wait a minute and then you 'll see.)<br>The President prayed. Then all was still,<br>And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL!<br>'About those conditions?' Well, now you go<br>And do as I tell you, and then you'll know.<br>Once a year, on Commencement day,<br>If you 'll only take the pains to stay,<br>You'll see the President in the CHAIR,<br>Likewise the Governor sitting there.<br>The President rises; both old and young<br>May hear his speech in a foreign tongue,<br>The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear,<br>Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair?<br>And then his Excellency bows,<br>As much as to say that he allows.<br>The Vice-Gub. next is called by name;<br>He bows like t' other, which means the same.<br>And all the officers round 'em bow,<br>As much as to say that they allow.<br>And a lot of parchments about the chair<br>Are handed to witnesses then and there,<br>And then the lawyers hold it clear<br>That the chair is safe for another year.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">God bless you, Gentlemen! Learn to give<br>Money to colleges while you live.<br>Don't be silly and think you'll try<br>To bother the colleges, when you die,<br>With codicil this, and codicil that,<br>That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat;<br>For there never was pitcher that wouldn't spill,<br>And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Oliver+Wendell+Holmes">Oliver Wendell Holmes</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472508" data-title="Parson Turell’s Legacy de Oliver Wendell Holmes" data-description="OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR

A MATHEMATICAL STORY

FACTS respecting an old arm-chair.
At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there.
Seems but little the worse for wear.
That 's remarkable when I say
It was old in President Holyoke's day.
(One ..."></div>
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