Society News

• Lebanese circles rejoiced at the return of the First Lady, Laure El-Khouri, wife of His Excellency Sheikh Beshara El-Khouri, President of the Republic, from her journey, which lasted two months, to resume her activity at the side of His Excellency her husband. The Woman's Voice welcomes Lebanon's First Lady and wishes her health, well-being, and happiness.

• The party given by Mrs. Faiza al-Solh, wife of His Excellency Riad Bey al-Solh, head of the Lebanese Government, in honor of the wife of His Excellency Mustafa al-Nahhas Pasha, head of the Egyptian delegation, at her summer resort in Aley, was one of the celebrated parties of the season. It was attended by the most distinguished circles of ladies in Lebanon — the wives of the ministers and the consuls, and the well-known families — headed by the wife of His Excellency the President. This party was distinguished by its elegant atmosphere and by that nobility and generosity for which Mrs. Faiza al-Solh is known in all her parties; she and her daughters attended to the guests themselves.

• On the right-hand side there appears, at Mrs. Nabhan's party, His Excellency the Prime Minister al-Solh, with Mrs. Nabhan and the leader Alakija on his right, and Emir Majid Arslan and Lady Alakija on his left.

• Among the parties of the season was the one given by Mrs. Hayfa Nabhan, wife of the notable Farid Nabhan, in honor of Lady Alakija and the Honorable Sir, her husband, the well-known African leader and friend of the Lebanese. It was attended by a great number of ministers, deputies, ambassadors, judges, and notables, headed by His Excellency Riad Bey al-Solh, President of the Council of Ministers.

● Polite Lebanese society is still talking with great admiration of the annual dancing party given by the Lebanese Red Cross, at the beginning of last August, at the Grand Hotel in Sofar.

The party was attended by His Excellency the President of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Beshara El-Khouri, together with a company of the great families of the diplomatic corps and the cream of society.

At the table of honor, beside the President, sat the Honorable Marquise de Freige, president of the Lebanese Red Cross organization.

It was a splendid evening, in which every cause of good cheer and merriment was complete... The circles of dancers kept forming anew and growing livelier in an atmosphere of perfect gaiety.

The ladies of the Red Cross showed surpassing energy and taste in attending to the honored guests and seeing to their comfort.

● The management of The Woman's Voice had the pleasure last month of a visit from a select company of literary women and men, and of ladies active in society, from the sister countries.

In a literary circle that brought together the sensitive Iraqi poetess Nazik al-Mala'ika, the great poet Nicolas Fayyad, and the family of The Woman's Voice, poetry had a large share of the sitting. Longing came over our poet, the ever-flowing Fayyad, and he gave many of those poems brimming with the memories of the days of youth. Nor was the Iraqi poetess sparing: she recited some of her verse, in which we could feel the choking grief of the wounded nightingale.

In a visit paid by the great Syrian woman of letters Salma al-Haffar al-Kuzbari with her husband Dr. Kuzbari and Mrs. Abla Khoury, Mrs. Kuzbari told us of her many literary projects, and spoke of the women's organizations in Damascus with the talk of an aware and cultivated woman.

This magazine was also visited by Mrs. Zahura Adil, principal of the Adil National School in Baghdad and wife of Dr. Anis Adil. She told us about this school of hers and the hopes she pins upon it, and in the coming issue The Woman's Voice will present an account of this model school which Mrs. Adil directs.

● Miss Zahia Kaddoura has returned from Cairo bearing a master's degree in the science of history from Fuad I University, and she is now preparing to write her thesis for the doctorate. She has taken "al-Shu'ubiyya" as the subject of this thesis.

● The woman of letters Salma Sayegh has published a book in both Arabic and French on "Some Aspects of Benevolence in Lebanon," a survey of most of the cultural, social, and humanitarian projects and works that have arisen in Lebanon on the shoulders of its ladies.

● Mrs. Zahia Saad, president of the Tahdhib al-Fatat Society, has returned from a journey in the United States that lasted a full year. The members of the society received her with congratulations on her return to carry on her work in the social and humanitarian field.

● In mid-August the engagement was concluded of the well-bred Miss Najiba al-Khoury of Qnat to Mr. Musa Nicolas Sulayman of Fih, in the Koura. The engagement party was attended by family and friends, and the well-known singer of the North, Odette Kamdou, delighted those present with her mellow voice.
To the betrothed pair go the congratulations of The Woman's Voice.

● Our colleague the magazine al-Alam al-Arabi, issued by the Distribution, Printing, and Publishing House in Cairo, has introduced a comprehensive renewal in its sections, entrusting its editorship-in-chief, in its new era, to the well-known journalist Ustad Asaad Husni, assisted by a large team of Arab men of letters and of the arts and of brilliant journalists, besides its correspondents spread throughout the Arab countries.

Al-Alam al-Arabi will concern itself with truthful news and the vital subjects that serve the Arab idea and tighten the bonds among the peoples who speak the language of the Dad — aiming thereby to convey the truest pictures representing the modern Arab renaissances, literary, social, constructive, and women's, in their various countries and their differing homelands.

● Mrs. Bahija Sidqi Rashid is one of the leaders of the women's renaissance in Egypt, of a noble family in Cairo; she is a member of the board of directors of the Egyptian Women's Union, and despite her many labors she takes a serious interest in the affairs of children and the cultivation of their artistic tastes.

There has lately appeared from her a collection of sweet songs, elegantly printed and adorned with colored pictures, in which she has expressed the feelings of innocent childhood in beautiful passages that bespeak taste and knowledge.