Imagining the Child's Picture

Many answers reached us for the child competition we published in a past issue. The judging committee found extreme difficulty in choosing the best of them. At last it agreed unanimously on the following answer, by Mrs. Jihan Aony:

O you young questioner:
Tomorrow is very near indeed, so let its forerunners not astonish you. This life is a single leap, from shore to shore, during which the wine of your youth intoxicates you — and then you are that withered old man who prepared himself, and life did not keep faith with him; who filled himself with hopes, and his hopes went astray; who carried his own burden, and stood panting with exhaustion...

O you innocent youngster:
Can it be questioning and wonder, when life has kept faith with you — so it claims — in that it brought you forth from its being a human creature from whose skin vitality leaps, whose thoughts are too large for their mold?...
Life is two colors, my little one, but it is treacherous besides, for it takes more than it gives.

O you gifted youngster:
Tell me, what does your intelligence profit you, and what use is your giftedness? Life takes no account of this and gives shelter to nothing; you are a mote of ash — nay, you are less than that mote.
So lighten your concern with life; be not deceived by what you have not seen, or heard, or touched, or what your delicate senses have not felt; and accept what time brings you with the smile of one who knows and is experienced...
But is this within your power, when generous human nature is stronger than the powers of beguiling life?
By my life, no...
Then let this artless nature go on crying through the corners of the inhabited world: Show me! Enlighten me! Whither? And how? And why???

Note: We must also make mention of three other answers, by Mrs. Rawda al-Karsh (Beirut), Miss Afaf (Haifa), and the wife of Bashir Abu Izz al-Din (Beirut).