Texts for Reading

Looking Back on Eighty Years

In my long life I have seen many changes in our habits and customs.

The world I entered when at the age of eighteen I became a medical student was a world that knew nothing of planes, motor-cars, movies, radio or telephone. When I was still at school a lecturer came to Canterbury and showed us boys a new machine which reproduced the human voice. It was the first gramophone. The world I entered was a world that warmed itself with coal fires, lit itself by gas and paraffin lamps, and looked upon a bathroom as a luxury out of the reach.

On Sundays the muffin man made his rounds ringing his melancholy bell and people came out of their door to buy muffins and crumpets for afternoon tea.

It was a very cheap world. When I entered St Thomas’s Hospital I took a couple of furnished rooms for which I paid 18s a week. My landlady provided me with a solid breakfast before I went to the hospital and high tea when I came back at half-past six, and the two meals cost me about 12s a week. I was able to live very comfortably, pay my fees, buy my necessary instruments, and clothe myself.

I had enough money to go to the theatre at least once a week. The pit, to which I went, was not the orderly thing it is now. There were no queues. The crowd collected at the doors, and when they were opened there was a struggle, with a lot of pushing and elbowing and shouting to get a good place. But that was part of the fan.

Travelling was cheap, too, in those days. When I was twenty I went to Italy by myself for the six weeks of the Easter vacation. I went to Pisa and spent a wonderful month in Florence; then I went to Venice and Milan and so back to London.

I spent five years at St Thomas’s Hospital. I was an unsatisfactory medical student, for my heart was not in it. I wanted, I had always wanted, to be a writer, and in the evening, after my tea, I wrote and read.

I wrote a novel, called Liza of Lambeth, sent it to a publisher, and it was accepted. It appeared during my last year at the hospital and had something of a success. It was of course an accident, but naturally I did not know that. I felt I could afford to chuck medicine and make writing my profession; so three days after passing the final examinations which gave me my medical qualifications, I set out for Spain to learn Spanish and write another book. Looking back now, after these years, and knowing as I do the terrible difficulties of making a living by writing, I realise that I was taking a fearful risk. It never occurred to me. I abandoned the medical profession with relief, but I do not regret the five years I spent at the hospital, far from it.

They taught me pretty well all I know about human nature, for in a hospital you see it in the raw. People in pain, people in fear of death, do not try to hide anything from their doctor, and if they do he can generally guess what they are hiding.

The next ten years were very hard. I did not follow up my first success with another. I wrote several novels, only one of which had any merit, and I wrote a number of plays which managers more or less promptly returned to me.

Then I had a bit of luck. The manager of the Court Theatre, Sloane Square, put on a play that failed. He read a play of mine, called Lady Frederick, and thought he did not much like it, thought it might just run for the six weeks. It ran for fifteen months. I had four plays running in London at the same time.

Nothing of the kind had ever happened before, and the papers made a great to-do about it. If I may say it without immodesty, I was the talk of the town. One of the students at St Thomas’s Hospital asked the eminent surgeon with whom I had worked as a ‘dresser’ whether he remembered me.

“Yes, I remember him quite well,” he said. “Very sad. Very sad. One of our failures I’m afraid.”

By William Somerset Maugham

VOCABULARY:

at the age of (at an early age) в возрасте ... (в раннем возрасте)

a luxury out of the reach недосягаемая роскошь

pay fees платить за обучение

a queue очередь

my heart was not in it душа не лежала к чему-либо

accept принимать

accident случайность

afford позволить себе

set out for уезжать, отправляться (в путешествие)

make a living by doing something зарабатывать на жизнь чем-либо

occur прийти на ум

abandon бросить, отказаться от чего-либо

regret сожалеть

far from it далеко не так, coвсем не так

in the raw без прикрас, в чистом виде, как есть

merits достоинство

run (about a play) идти на сцене (о пьесе)

make a great to-do много писать

be the talk of the town быть предметом обсуждения в городе

eminent выдающийся (в науке, искусстве)

immodesty нескромность

 

EXERCISES:

I. Explain and expand on the following sentences

1. In my long life I have seen many changes in our habits and customs.

2. It was a very cheap world.

3. The pit, to which I went, was not the orderly thing it is now.

4. I wrote a novel . . . and it was accepted. . . . It was of course an accident, but naturally I did not know that.

5. . . . knowing as I do the terrible difficulties of making a living by writing . . .

6. I did not follow up my first success with another.

7. If I may say it without immodesty, I was the talk of the town.

8. One of the students . . . asked the eminent surgeon with whom I had worked as a ‘dresser’ whether he remembered me. “Yes, I remember him quite well,” he said. “Very sad. Very sad. One of our failures I’m afraid.”

 

II. Paraphrase the following sentences from the text

1. The world I entered was a world that warmed itself with coal fires, lit itself by gas and paraffin lamps, and looked upon a bathroom as a luxury out of the reach.

2. My landlady provided me with a solid breakfast before I went to the hospital.

3. I spent five years at St Thomas’s Hospital. I was an unsatisfactory medical student, for my heart was not in it.

4. I felt I could afford to chuck medicine and make writing my profession, so I set out for Spain.

5. I abandoned the medical profession with relief, but I do not regret the five years I spent at the hospital, far from it.

6. I wrote several novels, only one of which had any merit.

7. Nothing of the kind had ever happened before, and the papers made a great to do about it.

8. I was the talk of the town.

 

III. Complete the following sentences with the words from the text

1. “Why did you _____ your driving test?” “I went through a red light.”

2. He was ______ with everything he needed.

3. I’m afraid they will not ____ our plan although it has its _____.

4. I had been standing in a ______ for half an hour when I noticed an old friend of _____.

5. She was a great ______ at her first concert.

6. Courage _______ her. She couldn’t move a finger.

 

IV. Paraphrase the following sentences using the words from the text

1. Her marriage was much talked about in our street.

2. Later on, I felt sorry about my decision not to take the job.

3. He earns money by selling insurance.

4. The mass media writes only about the explosions in Buinaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk.

5. I was able to pay for my education.

6. We study management as we want to become managers.

7. While travelling down the Amazon, they saw life without civilisation.

8. When he was 12, he wanted a new bicycle, but his parents couldn’t afford it.

 

V. Choose a word to match the following definitions

to be on at the stage – a set of questions given at the end of a course of study

famous – holiday in AmE

a careless event – outstanding

to do something even though – a line

you know it may have – to leave for

bad or unpleasant results – the other way round

 

VI. CROSSWORD PUZZLE

a. Find 19 words which can go in the following directions:

Letters can be used more than once.

KEYS:

III. 1. fail, 2. provided, 3. accept, merits, 4. queue, mine, 5. success, 6. abandoned

IV. 1. was the talk of the street, 2. regretted, 3. makes a living, 4. makes a great to-do about, 5. could afford, fees, 6. make management our profession, 7. in the raw, 8. at the age of 12, it was a luxury out of the reach for his parents

V. to run, eminent, accident, to take a risk, exam, vacation, eminent, a queue, to set out for, far from it

VI. accident, abandon, luxury, eminent, accept, queue, take, risk, merit, reach, raw, vacation, pay, fees, afford, fail, exam, occur, provide

 

b. Make up one sentence using as many words found in the puzzle as you can.

DISCUSSION OF THE TEXT

1. Speak on the life of people at the end of the XIX century.

2. What’s your opinion of the narrator’s life story? Do you appreciate the decision the narrator made after graduating from St Tomas’s Hospital? Analyse the pros and cons of such a decision.

3. What does the narrator accentuate at the ending? Is it the kind of ending the reader expects? What is its role in the story?

4. What are the main problems touched upon by the writer in the story “Looking back on Eighty Years”?

 

ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION

Aspects that should be considered during the discussion:

• the progress of science and technology, culture and the arts, sports, etc.;

• history and historical events;

• people of these one hundred years;

• changes in the environment;

• changes in person’s morals and values as well as in his appearance.

 

Submitted by Nadejda Beregovaia