sion, declares mockingly woman's passion for fashions and her infatuation with finery, forgetting that it is he who

led her to this passion and to that infatuation.

The overwhelming majority of Arab women have become, under the influence of this course that man follows with them, statues splendid in their beauty, bewitching in their elegance, bewitching in their coquetry. But they lack the beauty of the spirit, the charm of good sense, and the magic of awareness and maturity. What stirring inspiration can a beautiful face impart if it is empty of the charms of alertness and the splendors of penetrating thought?? Indeed, what benefit can the homeland hope for from a graceful, swaying figure if it is devoid of the leaping spirit that aspires to the highest ideals?

What fruits have we reaped, and you, from the women's renaissances that you encouraged and at whose head you marched, in their present state of confusion and disorder?

The true renaissance that we need in this our upbuilding is a renaissance in stagnant ideas and false inclinations, until woman understands her calling in life and her mission toward society, and proceeds accordingly, guarding with her vigilance the throne of sacred motherhood and protecting with her wisdom the scepter of the ideal family — a renaissance that lifts us from our stumble, refines our sensibility, and elevates our thinking, until together we unfurl the banner of true progress, springing from the shining star of thought and issuing from the ray of the understanding spirit.

Grant woman, my dear sirs, your confidence, and value her gifts at their true worth, so that she may look with her own sight into the essence of life, and understand that no elegance delights you like the elegance of a proud soul, that no beauty ranks higher with you than the beauty of the creative spirit, and that no adornment charms you like the adornment of the enlightened mind and the penetrating, sound thought.

Of silver He fashioned you,

and the envious pearls dived down.

Then He sprinkled color in you —

from what sun, one wonders, does the moon drink? —

and set down in the garden two vines of it,

so in the universe there are four luminaries.

And color folded its shadow,

and the horizon showed bluish —

O blueness of the phantom, and your memory,

and your eyes, were their limit but the illusion of color.

And the ringing echo — he sent it forth

gliding through the windings of the river,

and behold, the tune of laughter is poetry,

and the blind man swaggers, mocking the deaf.

A treasure, and an overflow of riches:

the silversmith's hands race his eyes and his ears,

and should he scorn a fellow who loves gold,

that one guffaws at white threads of silver in the hair.

Of silver He fashioned you —

so glory, O Juman; and O blossoms, turn unbelievers.