Word: ackland
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...years ago Tennessee-born Bachelor William Hayes Ackland, who had made a fortune in the stockmarket, died at 84. He wanted to leave most of his wealth to a Southern university, to build and stock an art museum. His first will, drawn in 1936, had left the money to Duke University; if Duke didn't want it, the money was to go to the University of North Carolina. Third choice: Rollins. Duke invited Ackland down for a visit, set an architect to drawing plans. Obviously pleased, Ackland drew up a second will, which made no mention of North Carolina...
...years since, Ackland's nieces and nephews have taken the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that, since only Duke was to get the money under the final will, the money belongs to the relatives now that Duke has turned it down...
Adapted by Rodney Ackland from a Hugh Walpole novel, this is one of those thrillers of the dirty-work-among-the-tea-cosies school -- "Angel Street" and "Ladies in Retirement" are others. Like them, it is concerned with the psychological fascinations of foul play in a secluded house in Victorian England. The old ladies, three of 'em, are boarders in a rooming house, each passing away her last few years alone. A conflict of personalities between the sadistic, half-crazed Agatha Payne and her high-strung, fragile neighbor, May Beringer, provides the substance of the drama. Starting slowly, the play...
Dwelling on an English Parnassus which has a traditionally bucolic landscape, Authors Warner & Ackland have a modern liking for slow, casual rhythms, unobtrusive rhymes, which make their precise metaphors seem more surprising by contrast. They have the acute feeling for country sights & sounds at which Anglo-Saxon poets are supposed to excel: for them the air often seems
...acknowledge an obvious debt in their dedication. Like him, they refuse to sentimentalize their fondness for nature, insist on its hostility to humans as well as its charm. But while robust Poet Frost nevertheless finds permanent solace among his Vermont hills and pastures, in the minds of Poets Warner & Ackland the bryony and woodbine of which they are fond are entangled with feelings of transiency which wither much of their charm...