...At the beginning of this month, the great gates open in Lebanon upon a throng of young people, jostling shoulder against shoulder, head against head... and the great houses, for all their spaciousness, grow too narrow for them — all of them crowding toward a single goal: the goal of learning.

Yes, this is the month of schools and universities. Parents make ready for it: from heavy burdens that give no rest to a mother's mind or a father's, to great hopes and aspirations that shimmer before them in the distance, tied by a frail thread forever about to snap — and when it snaps, their hearts snap with it.

And young people, girls and boys, still carrying the soft down on their wings, with as yet no talons and no fangs, come forward to meet the world — and the world, to them, is still all theirs: enchanting hopes and gardens of roses... And schoolmasters and schoolmistresses receive these precious pieces of their parents' hearts, laid in their hands — tender of flesh, soft to the touch, calm, gentle, and pure — and before them loom great responsibilities: the responsibilities of the good teacher, cast upon his shoulders alone, to rear these pliant boughs so that they grow and rise into the face of life as goodness and truth would have them grow.

God, how heavy these responsibili-ties are!!

How heavy they are on the shoulders of parents, in a country where the cost of secondary schooling nearly equals the income of an entire family... and learning in Lebanon has become a necessity nothing can replace, like eating and drinking and sleeping...

How heavy these responsibilities are on the shoulders of the poor teacher:

Life prepares him to carry out a great mission, as if it were the mission of the prophets, while the society he lives in prepares him for a wretched living; he wears out his nights and days trying to secure the meanest livelihood, and cannot secure it... How, in such a society, is he to secure the mission of the good teacher!?

And how heavy these responsibilities are

on the shoulders of the pupil himself. The pupil himself is a poor soul: his life is wasted in stuffing and cramming, in programs that weigh down the shoulders, with no aim to them but the winning of a certificate — which in the end may be no certificate of knowledge at all.

This month of schools — how many lessons it holds...

Three Widows

...The widow of Husni al-Za'im. The widow of Muhsin al-Barazi. The widow of Antoun Saadeh.

My heart was wrenched loose as I read these blood-stained reports in the papers. And I pictured the shadows of the lashes, broken over eyes worn down by despair and grief; and the happy, contented homes sobbing in black; and the innocent childhoods orphaned at their first dawning...

All of them orphans... and their mothers widows...

Is this, one wonders, the first crime man has committed against woman? Or is it one in the long chain of crimes that man commits against woman?

In society, man has sinned against woman... In the home, man has sinned against woman... In wars, man has sinned against woman.

And ambitions, and selfishness, and domination, and the love of glory forever commit their crimes against man — and woman pays the price...

Are they worth it, one wonders — all the world's politics and all its glories? Are thrones and crowns worth these innocent childhoods and this crushed motherhood?...

In Beirut

Of "Beirut" there is much to say.

Beirut, city of the Mediterranean, jewel of the East... city of learning and intellectual radiance, of the universities and the dozens of colleges... and city of this accursed "tramway" that never passes away, like the face of your Most Generous Lord...

The "tramway" in Beirut is a curse upon the city of Beirut, a glaring stain of shamelessness.

A squanderer of dignities, and of the humanity of man. Nest-ridden and hashish-ridden.

And there is no one to say to this company and to its masters... how sweet the kohl would look in this tramway's eye...