A Day at the Presidential Palace — The Wife of His Excellency the President Speaks to "The Woman's Voice"

A Day at

Fortune favored me with an appointment with Mrs. Laure, wife of His Excellency the President of the Republic, on Sunday morning — and Sunday is family day at the Presidential Palace, which His Excellency the President spends with his family, resting from the arduous and weighty labors he performs during the week, and enjoying a calm family atmosphere in which love, understanding, and peace prevail.

I met Her Ladyship on the palace steps, returning from church. She turned to me with her familiar smile and said: I hope the questions will not be embarrassing. After we had entered her private room, and after she had been kind enough to ask me about our paper and the other work carried on by the Lebanese Women's League, I put my first question to her: "What was the first thought that came to you when the news reached you that His Excellency the President had won the election?" She hesitated a moment before answering, as though calling back the memory of that day, then said with complete simplicity: "I prayed. Yes, the first thing that came to me was to kneel and pray, and to ask God to watch over my husband and help him bear this grave responsibility laid upon his shoulders, and to smooth the way for him to serve his country and lead Lebanon along the straight path, as he had always wished.

"And when the President came home, I pledged to him that I would do everything in my power to fulfill my duty toward him and toward Lebanon as a loyal Lebanese citizen. Then we went in our own car, without escort or guard, to his mother's house in Furn el-Chebbak — not as President and President's lady, but as son and daughter — to kiss her hand and ask her blessing."

At this I asked her: "Your duties as the wife of the first President are many and varied. Which of them is dearest to you, and which the most trying?"

"My duty is a double duty: my duty toward my family, as mother and wife, and my duty toward Lebanon, as the wife of its first President — and I do not know which of the two duties is more precious to me and dearer to my heart. I love my family; I watch over it and spare nothing, dear or cheap, for its comfort and happiness. I work always to make my home a place where my husband finds contentment and my children find warmth, where they find complete rest and perfect peace of mind.

"And Lebanon is my larger family. I do not begrudge it what I do not begrudge my own family: for it too I spare nothing, dear or cheap, for its strengthening and its safety, and I long to see every one of its members prosperous and secure beneath its sky. I deny myself no service that I am able to render in this cause.

"There are many social and charitable projects that I carry on together with an elite of Lebanon's gracious women, whose efforts have had the most telling effect on the success of these projects — among them the Red Cross, the Clothing of the Poor, and the Lebanese Soldier's Home. And here I cannot but praise all the women's associations in Lebanon which, though they differ in name, are united in aim and in heart, and work toward a single end: the happiness of our beloved Lebanon and the easing of its children's pains."

And when I put my third question to her — what is your message to the Lebanese girl, as a lady and a mother who understands the girl's problems and feels them? —

She sighed and smiled, then said: "What can I say — and when did a daughter ever heed a mother's advice?... Yes, the problem of girls is a grave problem in this country, and it demands special attention. I am a mother, and everything I wish for my own daughter I wish for all the girls of Lebanon. The girl must be prepared, at home and at school, to be a wellspring of good and of blessing for her society and her country; she must be raised on firm moral foundations, and trained to bear the various responsibilities she will face in the future... She should receive an ample share of culture — it may differ in kind, but its aim is one: to discipline her mind, refine her taste, and strengthen her natural gifts. She must also give her health and her outward appearance special attention: let her follow sound rules of health without fail, and take up sports and various exercises such as will give her energy, vitality, and grace. As for her clothes, her walk, her speech, and all her movements, they should join taste with understanding, simplicity with self-confidence. Let her be cheerful and free of spirit, feeling the beauty of life and rejoicing in it, without ever losing her balance and her poise. In short, I would like the Lebanese girl to be a modern girl in the full sense of the word — understanding the spirit of her age and living in it, without forgetting her traditions or losing her respect for what is old and her feeling for its splendor. Out of the very heart of Lebanese life and its traditions the girl of Lebanon should spring forth, a fresh flower turning toward the light, toward the new age, toward civilization wherever it may be — drawing from it strength and life, and spreading it as sweet fragrance in the air of Lebanon."

And the First Lady of Lebanon ended her talk by saying: "This is my message to the girl of my country; this is my ideal for her; this is what I would like my daughter and all the daughters of Lebanon to be. Someone may say that perfection belongs to God alone — but whoever sets up an ideal does not go astray, even if he does not reach it. Yet reach it we shall, God willing."