the writer can express all the subjects of thought, and a market in which works of authorship and artistic craftsmanship do not go unsold.
The proofs are abundant of the extent of our readiness
for sacrifice, in defense of our absolute freedom of thought. It is enough to point to the exhaustion the press, for example, has suffered under the writ of administrative suspension, and to the steadfastness of our great journalist-writers in the face of the harsh sentences that have fallen upon them under the writ of the new press law, whether before the press court or before the military tribunal, for the proof of what we say to stand. Nor do we think that the authors among our writers hold back, out of fear or dread or awe, from proclaiming what they hold to be the truth.
There remains the other condition for the flowering of letters: the creation of the material possibilities that will allow the man of letters and the artist to devote himself to letters and to art. It must be intimated in this connection that the creation of these possibilities benefits at one and the same time the people of art and letters, and our cultural standing. Every book, every artistic work sold outside Lebanon, is a mantle of light whose radiance is reflected back upon us. Then too, writers and artists — once their livelihood is assured — apply themselves to themselves, to their society, and to humanity, with patience and with depth, so that they perceive the causes that lie behind the husks and behind appearances; and their expression of the impulses of souls, of their feelings and their thought, grows more truthful and more comprehensive.
The sound opinion — if our surmise is correct — is that the government should undertake to establish a great house for printing and publishing, publication here to include the promotion of all the works of the mind.
The project may cost much money and great pains. But the life of our minds and the satisfaction of our noble ambitions are worthier of care than the cutting of a road — worthier of care, that is, than our feet and the tires of our automobiles.