mother, and I was among the admirers of her personality and her culture. No sooner had we settled into our seats than the mother — in the presence of her two daughters — began telling me stories of Hélène, her younger daughter, going on at length in describing her intelligence, her power of observation, her boldness in conversation, and her gift for mimicry; and she went further and asked Hélène to act a few parts, and she would drown in laughter at the slightest jest that came from her beaming little girl! And she took no account of Salma — indeed, it was as if Salma were not among us at all, sunk in the corner of the seat, her hands clasped tight from sheer nervousness, pain gnawing at her heart, tossed this way and that by all manner of psychological forces which she tried to suppress and subdue, until presently they burst from her eyes in abundant tears, streaming down and increasing for no apparent reason. And the mother explained Salma's behavior by an oddity of temper inherited from her paternal aunt — as though by that she had succeeded in analyzing the symptoms arising from the situation.
This mother has planted, with her own hand, envy in Salma's heart, and with the passing of days this envy has turned into hatred — the sister's hatred of her sister and of her mother together — and she has withdrawn into herself, secluded in her room, feigning absorption in study and reading, preferring solitude — the solitude that removes her from an atmosphere which oppresses her breast, in which she feels her weakness and her inability to show the contents of her sick soul — sick with the disease of the inferiority complex, or the feeling of worthlessness.
How can we hope for children like
On April 25 the Children's Welfare Society celebrated "the Day of the Child" in Lebanon... And this month Lebanon celebrates Mothers' Day... And who is more deserving of love than this beautiful child and this tender breast — my mother's breast, and yours.
It was the twenty-fifth of April — the day of the beloved child in Lebanon...
And what, in Lebanon, or in any nation among the nations, is dearer to hearts than these torn pieces of flesh and blood...
Our children, O Lord — O Lord, guard our children!!
Give them, O God, the warmth of health, the warmth of the bed, and the warmth of a nest to shelter in!!
Our children, O Lord... Wipe from their brows the humiliation of orphanhood, of degradation, and of poverty; and raise them up, O God, in the face of life, that they may be fruit-bearing branches in the human field...
Our children, O Lord... You have given them, in this noble woman who shows them tenderness on the Day of the Child, a mother — so guard their mothers, O Lord.
Guard our mothers, O God, that these sweet faces may remain to us, overflowing with tenderness and love...
Guard them all, O God — childhood and motherhood...