of peace — though she gave no notice of farewell — "O sister of Andalusia, peace be upon you!!"
O sister peoples: that great homeland has been folded away — and in every spot of it stands a station of history and the resting place of a martyr — all save a part between two mountains, holding no source of life nor sustenance for a soul. And behold, nearly a million wander the byways of the earth, wearing the black sash of catastrophe and the mantle of injustice, waking in supplication, shaking the Throne with their cry.
Her glory has turned to abasement, her height to lowliness — and has her ordeal not touched the innermost of your hearts, that you might rage at her wrong with a Mudarite rage before which the lofty mountains quake, the veil of the sun is rent, or it drips blood!
If you turn away, O peoples, from those cries and those lessons, then let the voice of history reach you — while the enemy is at the gates, and his aims reach beyond the borders of Palestine, toward the Barada and the Cedars and the two Euphrates and the Nile; that is the voice of the orator of Greece — Demosthenes — rising again from behind the generations, striking the ear anew with a decisive proclamation: as though Athens of yesterday were the Arab world of today; as though Philip of yesterday were Israel of today?!
Rise up, then, O Athenians, before the hour passes; seize your opportunities; shake off the dust of bondage, for the time has come for you to awake, to turn from quarrels, barren dispute, and petty affairs, to make ready for the struggle with a sincere, death-defying will, and to plunge into the frays yourselves!
And know that the victory yielded up to the usurping conqueror Philip will not satisfy him or turn him back. Every day the circle of his ambitions widens; and in the very hour when we sit at ease with folded hands, he weaves his nets about us and plots his plots... Rise up, then, to perform your great duty... What more are you waiting for?! For someone to pour torment and persecution
upon you?! As though the shame that has befallen us today were not the greatest humiliation a free man could suffer! What? Do you mean to sit crouched in your own houses, with no concern but to follow the news, unstirred by grave calamities?!
The Athenians enslaved, Greece engrossed, her sanctuary violated by a man of Macedon?! Is this not news enough to shake you?! And what does it profit you whether he lives or dies — for by your failure and your weakness you will create for yourselves another enemy in his place!
O Athenians, rise: your enemy has driven upon you — until now — every color of abasement and disgrace, and here he is laying his plans to crush you. He has declared that he will hold the reins of initiative, that he will wage the battles and not wait for events to happen; he will aim his blows well at you — will you not ward them off before the
hour passes?! Fight him, then, wherever he may be, or his hands will stretch out over you anew; face your adversary with courage — or else withdraw, humbled, with what dignity you may...
And now: that was the orator of Greece in that manifest yesterday — where, oh where, are the eloquent orators of Arabic, to weave her an inspiration from her history and a summit from her faith — for history and faith are the whole of civilization? Where are their cries to wake the sleepers — for oratory pierces souls more deeply than newspapers and books, and speaks more powerfully?!
Where are her men of letters — for the literary forces are what move the world — to carry the torch for her and light the way? Where are her poets, to compose for her the anthem of deliverance — one anthem with the power
Bernard Shaw warms himself at a fireplace on which this saying is carved: “They say... What do they say?... Let them say...”
Ameen Rihani took as a constant motto in his life: “Say your word and go your way.”
The poet Byron kept above his bed this maxim: “Women are all angels; marriage alone is its devil.”
The English novelist John Galsworthy kept fixed upon his desk this
sentence: “I shall pass through this world but once... I shall never travel this road again... so let me do all the good that I can.”