Everitt v. Laspeyre

Grice, Justice.

Whenever a question arises as to the proper construction to be given to a clause in a will, the thing to be determined is, what did the testator intend? The problem is not usually aided by a study in etymology, nor is it always safe to turn the inquiry into a quest to discover the precise meaning of a word according to scholarly standards, or to ascertain what would be accepted by accomplished grammarians as the correct parsing of a sentence. Courts should not neglect to drink deep at the Pierian spring when aid from such a source may be had; but applying the cardinal rule in…