absolute freedom, now wander blindly in their maze, and it has become difficult to bring them back again to the fold — to the arms of their fathers, to delight in their tenderness and the overflow of their love.
And the women of the world were the first to feel the gravity of this crisis closing in upon the family, exposing its essential elements to demolition and ruin; so woman rose up in all parts of the world, working together to treat the disease before it grew acute and its cure became impossible.
We in this country, though we enjoy freedom to a certain degree, still long for a gathering around the fire-brazier, warming ourselves over its red embers, listening to grandmother's tales and her sweet far-off memories... And we thank God that we find much happiness when we take refuge in our homes and find tenderness there, in the touch of a mother or a father, or the touch of an innocent child.
How beautiful those days were, when the family lived in contentment and satisfaction — sleeping on mattresses they spread upon the floor, one beside the other, and piled up in the morning one on top of another until they nearly reached the ceiling! And when mealtimes came round, they sat cross-legged on the cushions, around the straw tray, knee touching knee, dipping the morsel into one big common dish holding whatever it held of qawarma or mujaddara,
and crushing the onion with their strong fists until its pieces flew!
And they were happy with this primitive living: they slept their fill, and rose at dawn to beat the sun to the field, where they plied their hoes to the tunes of the ataba... And their cares seemed few in those days — or so it seems to us!
I greatly fear that the killing materialism will sweep away what is left to us of the beauty of the Lebanese spirit and its purity — that beauty which showed itself in the bonds of the family and its cohesion, and in the woman's tenderness, her affection, and her devotion to her home.
What we see today in our Lebanese life gives no promise of strengthening the family's being, or of settling the home upon its sound foundations. The Lebanese home has not yet fallen to ruin, but it is on the road to ruin, if the Lebanese woman goes on pursuing reckless freedom, behind the mirage that builds no houses but leaves them ruins...
The Lebanese home needs the woman; it needs its mistress, its queen; it needs her affection and her love; it needs her hand, her heart, and her mind...
The Lebanese home without the woman is a graveyard — so shall we make our homes graveyards, O women?
• A woman does not forget the man who deserted her... and a man does not forget the woman who loved him.
• Which is the more deserving of pity: the one who loved you... and whom you did not marry? Or the one you did not love... and married?
• Look out upon the world, Madam, through the window of your heart. A woman's heart is more delicate in feeling and truer in sentiment than a man's; and the social field, Madam, is the field in which you must come forward, for the problems of the homeless, the refugees, the sick, and the poor — none of these are borne except by the tender feelings that can reach into the hearts of those who have been denied the sun of life and whom fate and society have abandoned. Your tender feelings, Madam, can create a sound society with a mission.
Soir de Paris
Bourjois
The perfume of the women of taste of Paris
Soir de Paris
BOURJOIS
Perfumer – Paris