...And We Wove the Laurel Wreath!

And so it was that we wove the laurel wreath upon a brow whose like is rare among the brows of this country — a radiant, noble brow, which the years, heavy-laden with the toil of struggle, have only made more radiant and more noble; a brow lifted toward glory in the day when the brows of most of this country's women and men were bowed to abasement; the brow of a girl who opened upon her mind and heart the windows of knowledge; of an educator who polished for the rising generation its pillars and its corners; of a woman of letters who breathed her creative spirit into the Arabic letter and brought it to life after generations of deadness; of a journalist who cleft open before women's journalism the field of conquest and renewal; of a fighter who drummed out the glad tidings of the women's renaissance beneath the Arab sky; and of a wife who raised up in society a model family, which branched in its turn into families no less exemplary, carrying wherever they alighted the grace of the good example and the lofty way.

Yes, we wove the laurel wreath; and this wreath was not the gilded decoration which it fell to the Lebanese government to pin upon the breast of Mrs. Julia Tu'mah Dimashqiyah, at a family gathering to which the Lebanese Arab Women's Federation had issued its invitation, and to which gracious workers in the women's field flocked from Lebanon and Syria; rather, this wreath that we wove was a fragrant breath of speech, for whose expression the compass of words proved too narrow, so that it broke free of every bond, perfuming the air with the scent of true and heartfelt affection. And by God! how should the compass of words not prove narrow in expressing speech that treats of the meanings of eminence and majesty which the person of Julia Dimashqiyah reflects?

"The Woman's Voice" was most anxious that this speech should be gathered and harmonized in a unity independent of all other assemblages of words, and so it has issued it in a supplement to this issue. We are certain that our readers will find in it a gift that rises, in its purpose, above every gift; that they will receive it with welcome and peruse it with eagerness, and will find in what it intimates of Julia Dimashqiyah's struggle and of the facets of her singular personality an example that summons them to follow it and to trace its steps.

Yes! We wove the laurel wreath — and upon my life, what is that decoration, for all the esteem it symbolizes, beside this wreath of ours? This wreath of ours is beads from our hearts, braided in gratitude for kindness, in acknowledgment of merit, and in a showing of love... This wreath of ours never so much as gestured toward flattery; for Julia Tu'mah Dimashqiyah has risen above the bounds of flattery to the rank of the exemplar and the height of the symbol: that exemplar in which lofty ideas take flesh and live with man and for man's sake; and that symbol by which minds and hearts are driven toward the abodes of goodness, love, and beauty.

Rejoice then, Madam, in our wreath, which is yours alone; and let us rejoice with you in your decoration. For the esteem which this decoration expresses is nothing other than esteem for the exemplar you have been to us and for the symbol you have become for our sake; it is right, then, that we should rejoice in it with you, and join with you in offering thanks for it.

It remains for us only to pray God to keep you for us in well-being, that your eye may stay watchful over this renaissance whose banner you have carried, and which you have nourished with every beat of your great heart, with every one of your wise thoughts, and with every one of your noble sentiments.