Are You Alive?

Asma Tubi... a great name in the world of women's letters. She writes her letters as though she wrote them out of her blood and her nerves. Her letters were absent for a time from the pages of "The Woman's Voice," and readers kept asking: who is Asma Tubi? And here she returns to us, after an absence we did not want and she did not want... and with her return, there return to "The Woman's Voice" radiant pages of deep, living literature.

— The Editors —

We love life, there is no doubt of that. But do we, I wonder, enjoy it? Do we search out the essence of this love that runs deep through our being, and take it in its full strength? Do we draw the benefit from its every minute and take delight in its every pleasure?...

Man's love of life is a truth beyond doubt — a love that reveals itself in its deepest meaning when we are about to lose life... In those moments the world appears before us beautiful, smiling, bewitching... it appears sweet and precious, and we forget all we have suffered of its treachery and forgive it all the ordeals it has laid upon us... In those moments our heartbeats quicken with grief at losing it, and with regret that we did not make of it what we should have, and did not enjoy it as we should have...

Take this soldier marching toward death, in whom the anthems and the speeches and the music have stirred up a spirit of love of country that makes us imagine life has grown cheap in his eyes: one look at him as he seizes every chance, however small, to enjoy life's pleasures and drink deep of those pleasures, lawful or forbidden... He fears it may be his only chance — that tomorrow he may lose all this beauty; and how precious is what he stands to lose!!

Take this old man near his end — how delightful the world is in his eye! He clings to it as a drowning man clings to the rope, wishing... and, by God, how he wishes... to go back years... Take him back to childhood and take all he owns... But what use is wishing? The appointed hour comes, and behold, he leaves the world with a tear in his eye and an ache in his heart...

Take this wasting invalid: he may be crippled, with no way back to the field of beauty, yet he contents himself with the window from which he looks out on the world, or the chair in which he is drawn out to the garden... He may be consumptive, or stricken with a disease that leaves no hope of cure, yet hope keeps visiting him to the very last minutes — because life calls to him, and he listens to it and longs for it... Take this blind man who lives in pitch darkness, who has been denied its most precious pleasure: he does not kill himself, he does not leave life except by force — indeed, he smiles at the world...

What weight have misery and calamities in a man's life? He may grumble at the world, rage against it, and curse it — but in truth he is like that wretched woodcutter who spent his whole life toiling and drudging, going out at dawn to cut wood in the heat of the sun and the cold of winter, then returning at evening with bread for his seven children; he would feed them and sleep like a weary animal, only to rise and cut wood anew. And on one scorching day the poor man stood before his load of wood to wipe away the sweat pouring off him like a torrent, and cried from his depths: "What is this miserable life, O my God? It has worn me out. O Azrael, come and give me rest from it!"

And suddenly Azrael stood upright before him, saying: "Here I am — you called me..." The man's heart leapt in terror, and he forgot everything except that death was upon him, and he stammered, dissembling and abashed: "I called you, my lord, to lift this load of wood onto my back with me!" Thus do we love life; and thus, whenever we recall how many years of our span have passed, we try — even between ourselves and our own souls — to lop off some of those years, because their abundance brings us nearer the hateful end.

Life is sweet, whatever wounds and thorns it holds. Do we, I wonder, enjoy it in its due season? Do we feel that we are living — or, more truly, trying to live?... Do we prize the worth of the minutes, not the hours, seizing all the benefit they hold and reaping all the pleasure they contain? Do we awaken in our souls the delight in what surrounds us — in pleasures of every kind?

The pleasure of the heart, holding the beauty of love in all its kinds: love of dear ones, love of friends, love of children, love of the weak, the sick, and the wretched?

The pleasure of the eye, holding the beauty of nature in all its kinds: its towering rocks, its lofty trees, its fragrant flowers, its streams calm or turbulent, its mountains green and clothed in grasses, or white and clothed in snows.

The pleasure of the ear: the murmur of waters, the tender strains of music, the songs of the bees, the whisperings of the trees?

The pleasure of the spirit: withdrawing alone with a book that carries you to the world of yesterday, where you live for an hour, or to a world other than your own world, with events and customs unlike your events and your customs; sitting before the screen and enjoying the latest wonder that art has achieved... Do we, I wonder, awaken in our souls

the feeling of these pleasures while we are enjoying them — or do we pass through them mechanically, so that only when they have become the past do we return to them and find them sweet memories, and the proverb comes true of us: "Happiness is a butterfly: try to catch it and it flees from you" — or, more truly, happiness is a butterfly you hold in your hand without feeling it, and only when it has flown do you grieve for it? Or are we like that shepherd who spent his whole life in the high mountains, passing by everything beautiful and enchanting without heeding it — until a botanist passed his way, picked a wild flower, set it under his magnifying glass, and cried out joyfully: "Shepherd, come and see how beautiful it is!" And behold, the shepherd, gazing at the violet petals, wept. The scientist said: "Why do you weep?" And the shepherd answered, wiping away his tears: "How many times have I trodden on its like... I never knew it was so beautiful..."

And life holds other pleasures still. In work there is bodily effort, but in it too is the delight of one who draws up the plan and carries it out, who sets up the goal and reaches it... the delight of winning over difficulties and overcoming troubles, the delight of the victory born of strong resolve, the delight of duty done.

And in the perfecting of work there is an exactness that demands patience and effort; but in that perfecting there is pride of self — the feeling of one who adores perfection and defies imperfection, a man's feeling that he is abler than many at patience and perseverance, so as to produce work perfected and complete.

And in sacrifice there is a great denial of self; but in it there is the happiness of making others happy, and the delight of one who understands that giving is more precious than taking.

And in whetting the mind with deep thought, and in running the race in life's arena, there is exhaustion of one's powers; but in it there is the pleasure of invention and production, of storming dangers and standing fast against them.

Thus was the world made: holding beauty of every kind and pleasures of every kind. If we were not made to be in it, to enjoy its beauty and lay hold of the means of progress and strength within it — then why were we made at all?... and in the image and likeness of God..!

Madam, live your life, and teach those around you to live! Set before your eyes the enjoyment of the delight of victory and triumph, not the delight of laziness and slackness. Clothe life, through good and fruitful work, in beauty upon its beauty.

Life holds thorns and flowers: tread its thorns underfoot and breathe in its flowers. Take life with strength, and do not remain in dread and terror for fear of hardships or sickness or death. Take life with contentment, for there is no profit in reciting a long, broad list of calamities and hardships.

Life is short, so short: walk through it content. The sweet life is adorned by the memories of yesterday and the hopes of tomorrow — but the sweetest thing in it is today, the present hour!