tenderness for her, and a sure longing to clasp her to me...
In sum, what I sensed between your lines, and through private conversations with persons who have made her acquaintance and seen her in your company, is that she appears to be a girl of composure, sensible, companionable, and that she loves you with a true and honest love.
But with all this, am I to be blamed, Nadim, if anxiety besets me when I picture you on the verge of binding yourself to a woman who is a stranger to us, removed all this distance from your family and your country?!! Am I to be blamed for my concern over this grave step you are about to take — I who have tasted life's sweetness and its bitterness, I who have passed sixty, watching from near and close at hand the life of families, and the contingencies that beset the happiness of married couples and at times make resistance a kind of impossibility?!!
Accordingly, I hope you will not be vexed with me for putting to you a few questions which cannot fail to give you a clear picture of what besets me and besets your father, and of what runs through our minds in this regard.
1 - Do you truly harbor, in the depths of your soul and within the folds of your brain, a respect sufficient to match your love for this girl? And if so, did you strip yourself of sexual emotion before resolving to marry her?!! Did you seek out complete candor with her when you disclosed to her all that turns in your mind, all that your soul whispers to you, and all that your heart and your intellect overflow with of hopes, and wishes, and desires, and emotions, and inclinations, and appetites?!!
2 - Have you explained to her clearly that primary and fundamental goal which you set for yourself from your youth, the goal that carried you to that country so far from us in this era fraught with dangers?!!
You, my darling, for all the newness of your years, have striven, and have attained, despite your young age, a respectable and notable position among your people. God forbid that anything should cross your path to send you back to the beginning of the road, destroying all the efforts you have expended. Do you not see it necessary to review your circumstances and your particular conditions, those that have passed and those now present, and to work to bring them all into accord with your aim! And the most important act you can perform toward this end is the choosing of the suitable companion who will accept, with all willingness of heart, to help you bring the endeavor to success and reach the goal?!!
Observation has proved to us that those who have succeeded in life succeeded because they concentrated their hopes upon a single desire; they knew the goal for which they were created, then took the road toward it, and went on their way with firm step and wide strides, meeting no obstacle without subduing it, facing no hindrance without crossing it. This is what you have done, my Nadim, until now, and it has been cause for our pride, and for the esteem of your friends and of people for you; and my hope is that you will go forward to the end in this same fashion...
3 - Have you been frank with Margaret concerning your material position? For money, as you know, has a very great influence upon the harmony and happiness of a married pair, however much the pious and the bankrupt philosophizers may exaggerate in belittling its importance...
4 - Have you explained to her the factors that set East apart from West, even those most strange and most disturbing to a Western girl who has never before today left the confines of her own country?
5 - What is her parents' material and social position? Has she brothers and sisters? What is her age?
6 - Is she beautiful of face, of figure, and of dress? And do not forget your sensitive temperament on this score!!
7 - How is her health? For health is the fundamental factor in the building of a family. Look into this point with care, so that you may not be exposed to what your father has been exposed to — a life embittered by the frailty of my health and by my inability to share with him in social and working life.
8 - What is commonly said here among us is this: that the English woman is not like the French woman, or the German, for example, in the management of household affairs in point of taste, orderliness, and cleanliness. And you know well what an effective influence this quality has upon home life, especially in this age when servants' wages keep rising and their tyranny grows to a degree beyond all imagining. Have you studied this side of Margaret's inclinations? Does she possess energy for work in the house? And are the marks of true taste and cleanliness to be found in her parents' home?
I see no need to enlarge upon each of these questions or to set forth the consequences that follow from them. You have knowledge and understanding enough to make you careful in your directions. I would not have put them to you in this form, asking for answers to them, were it not for my longing, and your father's longing, to form a clear and distinct