Our Life Is Empty

The worst thing that has befallen woman in Lebanon, in her intellectual life, is that her intellectual life revolves, along most of its lines, in a vicious circle.

This dangerous disease is an evil not peculiar to the Lebanese woman alone; it has struck the man as well. But in the woman's life it appears glaring, while in the man it cloaks and conceals itself, so that to some people there seems to be some good in it, though it is all evil. A person in this country is greatly astonished to see that woman — for all the higher education she has attained, for all the diplomas on the walls of her room, and for all the activity of her social life — still has an intellectual life that is limp and cold. She does not compose, she does not write, she does not publish, she does not lecture, except under compulsion and in known circumstances — circumstances that are not, in any case, inner intellectual ones, in which the mind or the heart does its work of bringing forth talents.. And those who write and publish and lecture are few; and for all their fewness, only one or two of them have been able to impose their literature, their thought, and their opinion upon people.

It may be no great evil that woman does not write, does not compose, does not lecture, and that may be no sign of intellectual laziness in woman; but the great evil is that woman does not read — and this is intellectual paralysis itself.

Woman among us does not read books; woman does not read magazines. This means that woman, in general, lives isolated from the spiritual currents in the world. It means, too, that woman does not live in harmony with the living, beautiful things in life. It will not content us that a few of our women are deeply versed in matters of comprehensive human culture, for these few are very few indeed, counted on the fingers.

We do not demand of woman — of every woman — that she possess such comprehensive learning; but we want her, having received her ample share of higher or secondary education, not to cut herself off from the human currents of the world. We want her to develop in herself the deep spiritual powers by reading serious books of literature, poetry, and art, of education, society, and history, and not to content herself with those superficial, entertaining readings that dull the mind.

It is strange indeed that "The Woman's Voice" should address to its readers in all corners of the Arab world certain questions, asking their frank opinion of this magazine, that it may seek guidance and be guided — and our ladies do not trouble themselves to answer.. all, that is, except six only..