In these days when young people flock to the reading of novels — the romantic ones in particular — I should like to present to women in general and to the young girl in particular a sweet and worthy novel, hoping that in presenting it to them I may stir in their souls the longing to read it. This novel is “Raphaël” by Lamartine, rendered into Arabic by Mr. Hasan al-Zayyat. When we are fortunate enough to read literature that is delicate and strong, we help to form our character well and firmly; and someone once said: Tell me what you read and I will tell you who you are.

The book “Raphaël,” by Lamartine, the French poet of love and beauty, is a true story of its author's life — indeed, it is the tragedy of his youth. He called it the pages of the age of twenty, because it is the history of that age overflowing with emotions and bursting with youth. You know from your reading of this book and of Lamartine's other works that the French poet was a contemporary of Napoleon, for he was born in 1790; but he hated Napoleon and called him the tyrant. Perhaps that tender spirit in Lamartine — the spirit that made him in his old age a father to all the children of the village, and that made the birds his friends, entering his room and leaving it as if it were their own nest — that spirit is what made him look upon the conqueror as a bloodthirsty tyrant.

Lamartine visited Lebanon and stayed as the guest of Emir Bashir al-Shihabi. The visitor today to the Emir's castle at Beiteddine in Lebanon sees a room that is the poet's room, on

whose door is written this sentence: “Keep the hour of goodness and you shall win contentment.” Then inside the room he sees a metal tablet bearing a relief bust of the French poet and the date of the poet's visit to the Emir in 1833; and he sees, among the beech and willow trees, a rushing waterfall beside which the poet used to spend most of his hours dreaming. And if you ask any villager about these waters tumbling down like snows, he answers you artlessly that it is Lamartine's waterfall.

As for the story of his love — or the tragedy of his youth, as it ought to be called — it is that at the age of twenty, while taking the cure at the baths of Aix-les-Bains, he met a captivating young woman who was likewise there for her health; he loved her and she loved him. But she was a wife in name only to a generous old scholar who had adopted her as a child and then, fearing evil gossip for her when she grew to young womanhood, had married her.

After that you can imagine this burning passion between the two lovers: the young poet of twenty, his heart beating for the first time, and the girl not yet twenty, virgin in heart and in body alike... The summer months pass, and the two unhappy lovers part in their chaste love... The wife goes off to her palace, and the young man takes to visiting her... And in the story appears a third, noble figure: the old husband... He notices the love between his wife and this young man, but he trusts in the sanctity of the soul of the woman who lives at his side, and so he opens his house to the young man... He notices that this young man visits the palace only with caution, guarding the reputation of the woman he loves and fearing lest evil tongues chew over her name; he notices too that this noble youth fights the impulses of passion and tries to conquer his heart — and so he holds him in all reverence and esteem...

Summer comes again, and behold, the girl wilts like a thirsting flower; behold, she walks toward death with rapid steps; behold, she knows she is within a bow's length of death. Yet though those forces had gathered against her — love, then deprivation, then despair of love and of life — her firm character refuses to let her betray that generous old man and defile the name he had bestowed upon her.

The young woman goes on suffering between her love and her duty until, feeling death draw near, she fears to meet it with her beloved grieving at her side; so she chose that he should go before her to the resort where they had met for the first time, hoping the sweetness of memories might soften the pain of the blow — denying herself the consolation she would have found in closing her eyes for the last time upon his beloved face. And so she wrote to him to precede her to the lake, for she would meet him there. And the young man went and waited for her, ignorant of how gravely