自考英语综合二下册课文 lesson 13

　　[00:00.00]Lesson Thirteen  Text

[00:05.09]How to Grow Old Bertrand Russell

[00:10.66]In spite of the title,this article will really be on how not to grow old

[00:20.51]which at my time of life, is a much more important subject.

[00:28.26]My parents died young,

[00:32.84]I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors

[00:40.39]My maternal 1 grandfather,it is true,

[00:45.95]was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven,

[00:54.41]but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty.

[01:01.68]Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age,

[01:11.05]and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.

[01:20.01]A greatgrandmother of mine lived to the age of ninety-two,

[01:26.54]and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants.

[01:35.29]My maternal grandmother,after having nine children who survived,

[01:43.44]one who died in infancy 2, and many miscarriages 3,

[01:50.50]as soon as she became a widow devoted 4 herself to women's higher education.

[01:58.67]She was one of the founders 5 of Girton College,

[02:04.00]and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women.

[02:09.44]She used to tell of how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman

[02:16.49]who was looking very sad.

[02:20.93]She asked him why he was so melancholy 6

[02:26.78]and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren.

[02:34.44]"Good gracious," she exclaimed.

[02:38.69]"I have seventy-two grandchildren,

[02:43.55]and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them,

[02:50.21]I should have a miserable 7 existence!"

[02:54.37]"Madre snaturale," he replied.

[02:59.12]But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe.

[03:06.49]After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep,

[03:14.74]so she habitually 8 spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m.

[03:22.32]in reading popular science.

[03:27.28]I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old.

[03:35.93]This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young.

[03:42.88]If you have wide and keen interests and activities

[03:48.62]in which you can still be effective,

[03:52.67]you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical 9 fact

[04:00.25]of the number of years you have already lived,

[04:06.00]still less of the probable shortness of your future.

[04:12.97]As regards health,

[04:16.63]I have nothing useful to say as I have little experience of illness.

[04:24.18]I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake.

[04:33.42]I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health,

[04:42.17]though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome 10.

[04:49.83]Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age.

[04:58.08]One of these is too great an absorption in the past.

[05:04.35]One should not live in memories, in regrets for the good old days,

[05:12.82]or in sadness about friends who are dead.

[05:18.28]One's thoughts must be directed to the future

[05:23.60]and to things about which there is something to be done.

[05:29.46]This is not always easy;one's own past is a gradually increasing weight.

[05:39.30]It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions

[05:46.07]used to be more vivid than they are,and one's mind more keen.

[05:53.93]If this is true it should be forgotten,

[05:59.50]and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

[06:06.55]The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth

[06:13.39]in the hope of finding strength in its vitality 11.

[06:19.35]When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives,

[06:26.40]and if you continue to be as interested in them

[06:32.96]as you were when they were young,

[06:37.04]you are likely to become a burden to them,

[06:42.31]unless they are unusually insensible.

[06:48.16]I do not mean that one should be without interest in them,

[06:54.54]but one's interest should be contemplative and, if possible,

[07:02.40]philanthropic,but not too emotional.

　　[07:08.25]Animals become indifferent to their young

[07:13.68]as soon as their young can look after themselves,

[07:19.01]but human beings,owing to the length of infancy, find this less easy.

[07:28.68]I think that a successful old age is easiest

[07:36.33]for those who have strong impersonal 12 interests leading to suitable activities.

[07:45.48]It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful,

[07:53.13]and that the wisdom born of experience can be used without becoming a burden.

[08:01.78]It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes,

[08:08.15]both because they will not believe you,

[08:13.19]and because mistakes are an essential part of education.

[08:19.96]But if you are one of those who are incapable 13 of impersonal interests,

[08:28.32]you may find that your life will be empty

[08:33.59]unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren In that case

[08:41.25]you must realise that while you can still help them in material ways,

[08:48.40]as by making them an allowance or knitting than jumpers,

[08:55.07]you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

[09:01.44]Some old people are troubled by the fear of death.

[09:08.21]In the young there is a justification 14 for this feeling.

[09:13.56]Young men who have reason to fear they will be killed in battle

[09:19.91]may justifiable 15 feel bitter in the thought

[09:25.79]that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer.

[09:32.45]But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows

[09:39.81]and has done whatever work it was in him to do

[09:45.98]the fear of death is somewhat ignoble 16.

[09:51.93]The best way to overcome it so at least it seems to me

[09:58.31]is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal,

[10:05.44]until bit by bit the walls of the ego 17 recede 18,

[10:12.49]and your life becomes increasingly part of the universal life.

[10:20.85]An individual human existence should be like a river

[10:27.20]small at first,narrowly contained within its banks,

[10:34.33]and rushing passionately 19 past rocks and over waterfalls.

[10:40.60]Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede,

[10:47.37]the waters flow more quietly,and in the end.

[10:54.13]without any visible break,

[10:59.10]they become part of the sea,and painlessly lose their individual being.

[11:07.64]The man who,in old age, can see his life in this way,

[11:15.11]will not suffer from the fear of death,

[11:19.55]since the thing he cares for will continue.

[11:25.30]And if, with the loss of vitality, weariness increases,

[11:33.03]the thought of rest will not be unwelcome.

[11:38.31]I should wish to die while still at work,

[11:43.95]knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do,

[11:50.92]in the thought that what was possible has been done.

[11:58.47]Three Passions I Have Lived For Three passions,

[12:05.84]simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:

[12:13.20]the longing 20 for love,the search for knowledge,

[12:20.26]and unbearable 21 pity for the suffering of mankind.

[12:26.74]These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither 22,

[12:34.99]in a wayward course over a deep ocean of anguish 23,

[12:41.84]reaching to the very verge 24 of despair.

[12:47.79]I have sought love,first,because it brings ecstasy 25

[12:54.87]so greatthat I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life

[13:02.73]for a few hours of this joy.

[13:07.88]I have sought it,next, because it relieves loneliness

[13:15.14]that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness

[13:22.72]looks over the rim 26 of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.

[13:32.98]I have sought it,finally, because in the union of love I have seen,

[13:41.03]in a mystic miniature,

[13:44.69]the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.

[13:52.23]This is what I sought,

[13:56.08]and though it might seem too good for human life,

[14:01.82]this is what at last .I have found.

[14:07.10]With equal passion I have sought knowledge.

[14:13.94]I have wished to understand the hearts of men.

[14:20.21]I have wished to know why the stars shine...

　　[14:25.85]A little of this,but not much,I have achieved.

[14:32.62]Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible,

[14:38.99]led upward toward the heavens.

[14:44.04]But always pity brought me back to earth.

[14:50.38]Echoes of cries of pain reverberate 27 in my heart.

[14:57.23]Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors,

[15:04.88]helpless old people a hated burden to their sons,

[15:11.41]and the whole world of loneliness, poverty,and pain

[15:19.35]make a mockery of what human life should be.

[15:24.79]I long to alleviate 28 the evil,but I cannot, and I too suffer.

[15:34.64]This has been my life.

[15:39.00]I have found it worth living,

[15:43.57]and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.