No others remain standing, like eagles, on that spot of Lebanese soil.

Behind them the great limitless sky... before them the great limitless sky... above them the great limitless sky. As if they were themselves one great thing without limits.

Six columns of huge lifeless stones, enormous, in which dwells the legend of the human spirit, which put life into the lifeless, and the flight of the imagination which set heaven upon earth and earth in heaven.

Six columns... how many glories have you seen pass over this soil —

lovers and faithful, come from the ends of the earth to Baalbeck, the "City of the God," to offer their prayers and their sacrifices. In these six columns dwells the history of a nation — a great nation, eternal, enduring, creative... Here history is strong, grandiose, pro-found, and worthy... Here pure art bows down in this people of ancient civilization. A marvelous art raised man toward the heights — of confusion, of continuity, of harmony, of finesse.

How great man was, in this corner of my country, building for the centuries — Baalbeck, silent, grandiose, mar-velous among the marvels of the earth, joining coarse matter and grand designs in the stone, with that elegance, that finesse, that flight toward the infinite... A marvel without limit.