a thousand and one colors; and behold, woman is penciling the eyelids of time with a brush dipped in magic — mightier than time and fresher than time!!...

And there was Ashtarout!... the holy kiss strayed from heaven, and the gift of the gods to the children of earth! I believed in her... chanting to her beloved Tammuz the burning chants:

"Like the tree in its crown, so does my face shade your face, and like a precious jewel I hide you within me. By night I give you your cover, and by day your robe. Fear not, fear not, O little one whom I have reared!"

And so you see, gentlemen, that woman came into this world scat-tering blossoms and sweet things upon the earth and coloring life with the colors of art, poetry, and beauty; so man honored her, and set her in the highest place in his own soul, and raised statues to her of every kind and shape, and worshipped her as the painter worships his canvas, the poet his poem, and the believer his prayer and his shrine...

And there was the Shulamite... "she whom the sun has darkened, who kept her kids where the shepherds were; she whom they stayed with cakes of raisins and comforted with apples, for she was sick with love... the first Lebanese woman... from Hermon... from the lions' dens... from the mountains of the leopards...

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a very blaze of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man gave all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned."

And there was the Virgin...! that purified, refined one, the lady of women and the best of mothers.

I believed in her, pouring out her tears, generous and abundant, at the feet of the Crucified, her eyes nailed to the wood of the cross,

wailing until her wailing cut the very heartstrings; writhing, distracted in mind and thought, her heart aflame, her bowels rent, preparing the embalming spices and the perfumes for the body of her beloved son — and so teaching the whole world a magnificent lesson in the sacrifice of mothers...

And there was the Magdalene!... the gate of hell, the stone of the tomb, and the very den of sins...

I believed in her!... The defile-ments of earth drag her down to earth; the demons of lust gnaw within her inward parts; the volcanoes of evil, sin, and transgression erupt in her body... Then she sees the Master... after His tidings had filled her ears; eye meets eye, heart beats toward heart, and behold, the God hidden within Him enfolds her wholly, to slay the beast of lust hidden within her; and behold, she is a Magdalene made pure, a believer shedding the tears of repentance, wetting the Master's feet and drying them with her loosed jet-black hair...

And there was the Age of Ignorance!... and there was Layla, daughter of Lukayz... Layla the Chaste...

I believed in her... kindling a raging war between her people, the Arabs, and the Persians, because these had sought to assault her honor:

Would that al-Barraq had an eye to see what affliction and misery I endure. Your sister has been tortured — woe upon you! — with abominable torment, morn-ing and evening. They shackled me, they chained me, they struck the seat of chastity in me with the rod. The foreigner lies: he shall not come near me while any last remnant of life is in me. Beware the shame upon your posterity, and upon you, so long as you remain in this world.

And there was Islam!... and there was Khadija, the pure woman, the Mother of the Believers, and the wife of the Trustworthy Prophet...

I believed in her, of whom the noble Arab Prophet says:

"No, by God, God never gave me a better in her stead: she believed in me when the people disbelieved, and she held me true when the people called me liar, and she comforted me with her wealth when the people denied me; and God granted me children by her, and by no other among people. And truly I love whoever loved her..."

She it was who knew, by her wisdom and her insight, how to sit enthroned, serene and secure, in her husband's heart; he spent with her the flower of his youth, and took no other wife beside her, and loved no one as he loved her. And he went on remembering her all his life, and honoring her friends and her acquaintances...

I believed in her as a mother, of whom the Arab Prophet says:

"Be dutiful to your mother; then your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then the next of kin and the next. And if your father and mother call you, answer your mother — for Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers."

And there was the Umayyad age!... the age of the Arab woman in her literary freedom and her social life... the age of Wallada, and of Aisha daughter of Talha, and Jamila, and Azza al-Mayla, and Layla al-Amiriyya, and Buthayna, and many others besides...

And there was Sukayna!... the jewel of the necklace, daughter of the Imam Husayn, and granddaughter of Fatima, the Prophet's daughter... the witty, playful woman!...

I believed in her, keeping company with the great men of Quraysh, the poets gathering about her. People blamed her because, as they claimed, she had been cheated in exchanging her property at al-Zawra for a palace in al-Aqiq called al-Buraydi. So she goes out with her slave girls and walks in al-Aqiq when