VALUE OF OLD AGE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 11

VALUE OF OLD AGE

DISCUSSED BY DEAN INGE “Childhood is not merely a preparation for manhood, and old age is not merely a preparation for death. The rich colours of autumn are as admirable and rightly fashioned as the delicate greens of spring,” said Dean Inge recently, when preaching in St. Paul’s Cathedral shortly before his retirement. “We don’t pride bodily beauty so much as the Greeks, but many have wished not to survive their good looks, and many men have dreaded the humiliation of decreptitude and wished to die in the vigour of life, and yet we have a feeling that a life cut short before old age is incomplete. Length of days has always been a boon some men have prayed for, though Solomon was sensible enough to pray for wisdom instead. “We ought, I am sure, neither to fear death nor to wish for it. We ought to feel that death simply does not count. All that matters is that a life should be well lived up till the time of its close. If we are not the creatures of to-day, but immortal spirits, what can it matter if we spend a few years more or less in this state of our probation? I like the brave words of Sir Thomas Overbury in the 17th century, that man feels the advance of age rather by the strengthening of his soul than by the weakness of his body.”

VALENTINO'S WIFE Natcha Rambova. the beautiful second wife of the late Rudolph Valentino, has been secretly married to Don Alcaro Urvarz, a Spanish nobleman, states an exchange. The wedding took place at Palma, Majorca. The couple have bought a villa at Palma overlooking the sea, where they Intend to live. Mrs Valentino is stated to have made a fortune in property speculation in Majorca. According to their friends, the couple were secretly married by the civil authorities in Paris some time previously. In deference to the wishes of the bridegroom’s family a Roman Catholic religious marriage ceremony followed at the Church of San Francisco, in Palma. The bride is not a Roman Catholic. She agreed to the religious marriage to please Don Alcaro’s family, which is one of the oldest Catholic Basque families in Spain. Only a few friends were present. Natacha Ramboxa is the adopted daughter of Mr Richard Hudnut, the millionaire perfumer. She went through two ceremonies of marriage with Valentino. Valentino’s first wife was Jean Acker. There was a divorce in 1922. Before the time required by Californian law for divorced ipersons to remarry had elapsed Valentino and Miss Rambova were married. They said that they were “so madly in love with each other that they would not wait.” As the divorce had not by that time become operative the couple remarried in March, 1923. Since the death of Valentino Miss Rambova has claimed that she has received spirit messages from him through a medium. “The messages I have received from Ruddy,” she once said, “are wonderful. He has given the most interesting details of his life over there. He tells me that he is extremely happy.” Miss Rambova also claimed that Valentino had explained his will in Which he left her one dollar and about £IOO,OOO to her aunt, his brother, and his sister. “I quite understand,” she said. Natacha Rambova obtained a decree of divorce in Paris against Valentino in 1926.