we have lost for want of notation! Then too, I find that playing has become, in Egypt, finer than singing — despite what someone has said, that the most ravishing of sounds are three: the voice of man, the murmur of water, and the ring of gold. Or the rustle of paper, now that money has come to be confined to paper.. It has been said that nations are like children: distribute among a group of them a quantity of piasters, and one will buy chocolate with his share, a second will purchase a wheel, a third will ask for a picture or a doll, another will buy a pipe, and so on. Statistics have shown that we are a musical nation; so it is a wonder of wonders that those who have not mastered singing should venture to sing on the radio. Upon my life, in some of the folk songs — even the village ones — there is a fire more sincere than that which is credited to those who boast of their imitative art, joining the melodies of the Arabs to the melodies of the Greeks before history, or to the artless modern melodies of Europe, in a discordant fashion — the very same followed by certain singers in the sixteenth century. For one of them undertook in those days to create a lullaby resembling one that goes by the name of "Three Blind Mice," and he turned its tune about, as though you were to say "Blind Mice Three"; then another ventured upon what he had done, and made the end of the tune its beginning and its beginning its second part, as though you were to say "Blind Three Mice"; and a third, priding himself and wishing to prove his skill in composition, made the middle of the tune its beginning, as though you were to say "Mice Three Blind." And this manner of mixing the Arab melodies with the Western — above all those of them remote
from our tastes, like the discordant cries of the peoples of frozen northern Europe — is like the translation of a journalist who has fitted himself for journalism with nothing but a capacity for translation that cannot do its office, being neither correct nor well-wrought. So have mercy on the spirits, O you who address the spirits! Yet all these innovators do not rise to the level of what Abduh al-Hamuli attained in his adwar. And if there is to be no renewal but this, then let us content ourselves with Abu al-Zuluf and the 'Ataba, immortal as long as God wills.
The charming actress Deanna Durbin says that happiness is within the reach of every human being, who can obtain it whenever he wishes and whenever it pleases him to do so. But how?
One must accustom oneself to loving everything in life, however simple or trifling it may be; and then one will find that happiness lies in one's hands and at one's beck and call forever!
The governor of the distinguished city of Damascus has prepared a vast project for the creation of the new city of Damascus; this project takes in the old quarters, while preserving the Eastern, Arab character of the Syrian capital.
A certain lady was stricken with an illness which the doctor was unable to diagnose. She was poor and a stranger, and through the good offices of charitable people she was moved to a private hospital, where she was examined; yet no one was able to diagnose the illness — which led many physicians of internal diseases to examine her in order to learn the truth of her malady.
On the evening of last Tuesday this lady died, and by order of the doctors of this hospital she was moved to the medical department of the American University of Beirut, so that the necessary autopsy might be performed on her body and the real disease that led to her death discovered. She was shrouded and laid out on a slab there, beside the bodies of four other women.
She returns to life
Dr. Yamout graduated this year from the American University, and he keeps up his studies in fulfillment of certain examinations in anatomy.
On Wednesday morning Dr. Yamout was the first to enter this department, where he inspected the first corpse; and when he had finished his examination he noticed a movement in the place where the lady had been laid, and then saw her sitting up on the slab. He approached her gently and cautiously, thinking of what might befall this woman were she to learn that she was in the room of the dead and that medicine had been on the point of performing her dissection; and he came up to her, saying:
— You have wakened early; I hope you have not disturbed the other patients.
— No, sir; but I feel cold.
— You are in my room, where I am attending to your examination.
So saying, he threw a jacket over her, then summoned some nurses to move her quickly to the hospital.