• On the ninth of October the First Lady of Lebanon received, at the palace of Beiteddine, the Lebanese families who came flocking from every corner of Lebanon to salute Her Ladyship and to express the devotion of the Lebanese woman to the First Lady in Lebanon, who has never ceased to labor and struggle for the sake of this beloved homeland at the side of His Excellency her husband the President. Her Ladyship received the women of Lebanon with the tact, taste, and solicitude for which she is known.
This reception is still the talk of women's circles, which esteem in the First Lady of Lebanon the spirit of a great and devoted woman who plays the foremost part in stirring energies and watching over the public interest.
• At the end of September Sheikh Khalil Takieddine, the acting director of Radio Lebanon, invited the men and women of letters of this country to a meeting held at the National Library to consider the affairs of the broadcasting service, after he had taken up the task of raising it to the place befitting a country like Lebanon.
Nearly forty Lebanese thinkers
attended this meeting, among them two ladies: the cultured Mrs. Widad Maqdisi Cortas and the woman of letters of Lebanon, Mrs. Salma Sayegh.
It was plain from the program prepared by the great man of letters that the Lebanese station will wit
ness, in his era, a profound activity in thought, in literature, and in sound national guidance, and that Lebanon is entering upon an age in which thought and art will hold a lofty place. Sheikh Takieddine presented his forthcoming program to the writers, and it proved a full and comprehensive program embracing Lebanese activity in all its deeper aspects.
The step that Sheikh Khalil Takieddine is taking with the broadcasting station is a bold step, after which the station will leap to a very high level and thereafter stand among the great stations.
We are pleased to announce that in the new program a special corner has been prepared for woman, presented by a select company of Lebanon's women writers and thinkers... and that "The Woman's Voice" takes a broad part in this program. Its first broadcast was given by Mrs. Ellen Rihan, on the subject "The Women's Associations in Lebanon," and the charming Miss Samira Saba offered lovely selections of song on The Woman's Voice program.
• The American University of Beirut celebrated the installation of its new president, Dr. Stephen Penrose, on the first of October. The ceremony was one of those memorable occasions which the University holds at such times, and to it were invited the authorities and the men of thought and politics of the Arab world.
Dr. Penrose is the fourth president of the University, succeeding in the presidency Dr. Bayard Dodge, whose term of service ended this year. Four presidents have followed one another in the office: Daniel Bliss, Howard Bliss, Bayard Dodge, and then Stephen Penrose, the present president.
The University has always been a great workshop of men in this Arab East, and it will carry on its great mission in the era of its new president, remaining always that great cradle which brings forth the men of thought, letters, and politics for this East.
• Dr. George Kheirallah — a physician and poet, one of those dutiful Lebanese who do honor to the face of Lebanon in the United States. He has retired from medicine and turned his activity toward literature and journalism. He has lived in New York for more than half a century, and to this day he publishes the Arabic magazine "The Arab World." He has a particular gift for translating the poetry of the Mahjar into English, a language he commands with mastery! He
has translated a number of poems by Elia Abu Madi and others, and this year he favored us with a translation of "The Processions" by Gibran Khalil Gibran, in which he succeeded completely in keeping the translation literal while preserving the original Arabic meter... The meter is accompanied by a splendid music that shows the measure of the translator's taste in choosing musical words that harmonize with one another. The translation is prefaced by a brief account of the life of the great Gibran as Dr. Kheirallah knew him and as he wished to present him to the Western world...
The book is printed on glossy paper and adorned with the very drawings that Gibran made to grace his Arabic "Processions"...
Dr. Kheirallah visited the family of "The Woman's Voice" and kindly presented his book and his drawing. The editor asked him for a message to the Lebanese woman before his departure from Lebanon, after his visit and his fleeting tours through it, and he said:
"I am an admirer, proud of the activity of the Lebanese woman and of her progress in every field. But there is one thing in which I should have preferred not to see her, and that is her adoption of Western dress with all its faults. In my opinion the Lebanese woman is quite able to take for herself a dress bearing her own particular stamp; and these long, flowing garments, which the West claims to have created, are nothing but remnants of Eastern fashions! They stole them, and we follow them, content and satisfied!!"
The Woman's Voice thanks the traveling man of letters for his gift and his precious advice, and wishes him a blessed journey and a speedy return.
• Dr. Haberski, delegate of the international Mediator, visited the well-known artist Ustad Saliba Douaihy in his studio.
In the studio the artist made an oil portrait of him, and Dr. Haberski wished to acquaint his aides with the Lebanese artist, so the artist gave a tea party for them in his studio, at which Dr. Haberski and his aides were able to become acquainted with the rich artistic side of Lebanon through the paintings they saw in Douaihy's permanent exhibition in his studio. It is truly a matter of pride for Lebanon that a group from the United Nations should show such admiration for Lebanese artists and appraise our artistic values at their true worth,