Text 6 the inner self: marriage

Dolores Valentine knows all about love. She is sixty-five years old and has been married six times. The first time she was a bride, her wedding was on her seventeenth birthday. The last time she got married, she was sixty-two. Her bridegroom that day was seventy-five and he died two weeks later.

Dolores Valentine has been married six times, but the remarkable thing is that she has never been divorced. All six of her husbands died while they were married to her. Six times she has been a loving wife and six times she has been left a widow.

Now she is engaged again and is going to be married in six weeks' time. But this time she is going to marry a man much younger than herself. Her fiancй is a thirty-nine-year-old farmer - strong and healthy. This time Dolores feels pretty sure that she is going to be the one to die first and leave her husband a widower. But Dolores isn't worried. Until then she is going to have a good time and enjoy life, because Dolores knows that you are only as old as you feel.

Vocabulary:

to be married - бути одруженим (заміжньою)

bride - наречена

wedding - весілля

bridegroom - жених

to be divorced - бути розлученим

husband - чоловік

wife - дружина

widow - вдова

to be engaged - бути зарученим

fiancй - жених

widower - вдівець

Questions:

1. What do you think is the best age to get married?

2. At what age do people usually get married in your country?

3. Do you think it is better to marry someone older or younger than yourself? Why?

4. In your country, who usually keeps children if parents get divorced?

Part II Text 1 memory

If you do not use your arms or your legs for some time, they become weak; when you start using them again, they slowly become strong again. Everybody knows this, and nobody would think of questioning this fact. Yet there are many people who do not seem to know* that the memory works in the same way. When someone says that he has a good memory, he really means that he keeps his memory in practise by exercising it regularly, either consciously or unconsciously. When someone else says that his memory is poor, he really means that he does not give it enough opportunity to become strong. The position is exactly the same as that of two people, one of whom exercises his arms and legs by playing tennis, while the other sits in a chair or a motor car all day.

If a friend complains that his arms are weak, we know that it is his own fault. But if he tells us that he has a poor memory, many of us think his parents are to blame,** or that he is just unlucky, and few of us realize that it is just as much his own fault*** as if it was his arms and legs that were weak. Not all of us can become extremely strong or extremely clever; but all of us can, if we have ordinary bodies and brains, improve our strength and our memory by the same means - practice.

Have you ever noticed that people who cannot read or write usually have better memories than those who can? Why is this? Of course, because those who cannot read or write have to remember things: they cannot write them down in a little notebook. They have to remember dates, times, and prices, names, songs and stories; so their memory is the whole time being exercised. ****

So if you want a good memory, learn to practise remembering.

Notes

*do not seem to know - певно, не знають

** his parents are to blame - треба звинувачувати його батьків

*** just as much his own fault - тією ж мірою його власна провина

**** is … being exercised - тренується