I held to my resolve and made light of the difficulties, and after a few years had passed I was able to bring my family the good news that I had succeeded in subduing the land without its subduing me — by the hardness of my will and the strength of my two forearms. Yes, by the strength of these two forearms of mine, which were soft and have perhaps grown rough. How could they not, when so often I have gripped the plow with my own hand, so often driven the oxen myself and tended them, and so often risen from my bed in the dark of night to oversee the watering of the fields — seeing, through it all, happiness accompanying me, and feeling an ease of conscience flooding over me.
Q — Why do you not stay on the farm always?
A — When I married I was obliged to live in Beirut, to open a house and run it, visiting the farm from time to time. I am a housewife, and I have two orphan girls whom I am raising; yet for all that I do not fall behind in continuing to manage the farm, with its peasants and its livestock and all the other things the land requires. To the peasants I am "the ruler" who solves all their problems and helps them in all their affairs. I play the doctor for them at times, and the midwife for their women at other times; I also settle cases whose solution baffles them, so I am the judge and the lawyer, as I am the governess and the teacher of their children. I keep orderly registers that I supervise myself, recording the yield and the statistics needed for every crop and every kind of animal. Farm life is an all-embracing life, holding every sort of life within it — what a happy life it is!
Warner's Brassieres and Corsets
Brassieres and corsets
Warner's
WARNER'S
Give you added luster and beauty,
charm and radiance;
in them you will find your ideal figure
and your perfect gracefulness, and you become
mistress of your own step
General agent
Zahar
Souk al-Tawileh
Do not read to cultivate the spirit of dispute and argument in yourself, nor to accept everything that passes before you, nor to find in it matter for chatter and jesting; rather, read to sift out truths and gain insight into things.
Books are of many kinds: some are to be tasted only, some are fit to be devoured, and a few are to be chewed and digested; that is, some deserve to be read in parts and passages, some deserve only a surface skimming, and there is the small number that merits reading with care and reflection.
There are some books that are read by proxy — that is, they are read in the form of extracts chosen or abridged by someone else. These, upon my life, are usually the cheapest sort of books and the poorest in substance; for books, when summarized, are like water when distilled: the little that is useful is drawn off, and the much that is worthless is left behind.
Reading makes a man complete, company makes him quick of wit, while writing makes him exact and closely attentive. In writing he needs a retentive memory, in company a kindled mind, and in reading a penetrating thought, so that he may learn what has escaped his knowledge.
The branches of learning are of many kinds: "history" teaches wisdom, "poetry" refines the feelings, "mathematics" sharpens the wits, "philosophy" prompts one to plumb the secrets of nature, and "logic" imparts skill in persuasion.