A story of an estate sale ...
And an antiquity that keeps on giving.
The estate sale was a treasure trove of antiquities. I browsed for about twenty minutes before finding this gem.
I was instantly attracted to the embossed leather cover. Then I opened it to find that it is a Biographical Dictionary, circa 1845.
The book states: Universal Biographical Dictionary / Contains the lives of the most celebrated characters of every age and nation.
Apparently, it’s a record of every notable person—ever.
Jesus even made the cut. Hallelujah!
As I perused the pages, I stumbled upon some interesting people and realized that, as a writer, I had made an amazing find!
These are potential characters. In one or two sentences, their lives are summed up by their most interesting accomplishments … or transgressions.
Take these Margarets, for example:
Three Margarets in a row…one attending to her husband in wars in the holy land, behaving with heroic intrepidity when he was captured.
Another Margaret married the king of France, a beautiful and sensual woman who was eventually strangled (yikes!).
The their Margaret was married to the infant of Spain (Apparently, in Spain, the heir to the throne is a prince or princess; all other sons and daughters are infants. Go figure.) and the duke of Savoy, and displayed religious zeal against the Lutherans. (The fourth Margaret is quite a character, too.)
A book like this is amazing fodder for stories. Of course, names would be changed to protect the innocent … or guilty, as it were.
And then I found this gem. (Unfortunately, Earl’s story was split into two columns.)
Can you imagine? Earl, having officially gotten away with murdering his brother, sits at the dinner table, annoyed at having to go through the rigamarole of defending himself. His father, the king, is glowering at him from the head of the table, when suddenly a brilliant idea pops into Earl’s head, and he says, “Please pass the bread.”
The king, who still believes his good-for-nothing second son is nefarious as the day is long, nods to the butler who strolls down the long table with a loaf. Earl stands to his feet, grabs a slice of bread, lifts it in the air, and exclaims heavenward, “If I hath killed him, may this bread sticketh in my throat!”
The king, believing God is righteous and just, knows his son just proved he’s an idiot.
Earl takes a generous bite. It sticks in his throat. He chokes, and he dies.
And although it happened in 1052, I’m writing about him today. 974 years later, he’s remembered for that very moment … forever. Unfortunate.
I’m going to keep flipping through this treasure trove of characters. Perhaps some of them will make an appearance in a future story.
I love finding odd items at estate sales. When I’m long gone, if someone is inspired to write a sentence about my life, it will likely be something like, “She bequeathed to her children a peculiar hoard of curiosities she discovered by rifling through the belongings of strangers.”
Next week, I’ll share the story of a fabulous woman I met at In-N-Out. She will likely make an appearance in my next installment of The Grace Writers series (The Weathered Vessel).
