by it. Of this sort is what I read lately in al-Hilal magazine about the movie stars: that "in the past they did not care to acquire books to profit by them, but for decoration"; now, however, things have changed, and they are counted "among the people fondest of reading."
Nor has our own society lacked such dilettante fops. I remember that one of them wished to honor me by showing me into the library room of his house. I found it truly a delightful feast for eye and heart alike, with the treasures it contained; and our friend would have nothing less than to hand me, in his enthusiasm, one of its books, to show me the quality of the leather in which it was bound. I took the book, and after I had examined it from the outside as he wished, it occurred to me to open it, to see what it was and what it treated of — when suddenly I heard a cry of alarm. I traced its source: it was the owner of the book, anxious lest I open it and spoil its newness. And I learned, not without astonishment, that these books were, in his view, not for use but for show.
The home library is the mirror of its owners' refinement, and its spread in any society is proof of the high culture and learning that society has attained. It is natural that the foreigners should be ahead of us here, directing exceeding care to this piece of furniture and reckoning for it a special place in the family budget. And no wonder: the house is woman's kingdom, and the home library is among the contents of that kingdom; while woman among us, until half a generation ago, walked in pitch darkness of ignorance and illiteracy, in the odious ages of decadence, when reading and writing were forbidden her. And if, as a rarity, one was found who could read, her home library did not go beyond books of prayer and worship, some stories of saints, men and women, and, at most, some easy, trite novels.
Today, however, when we have come to the height of our intellectual renaissance, and many of our women possess no small measure of culture and of the desire for cul
ture, it has become rare to enter a house without seeing a corner set apart for books, arranged in a way that lets you withdraw there into an atmosphere of quiet befitting the majesty of knowledge and its pursuit.
There is no doubt that the library, as I have said, is the mirror of its owners: its contents depend upon their culture, in kind and in extent. It is not reasonable to find, in the library of a house of modest culture, what we find in another house whose members are known for a high share of it. There is, however, a point I should like to make clear and to draw attention to: the home library must escape the fetters of specialization. If the master of the house is, say, a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, that does not mean his home library should contain only books treating of his specialty; such books have another place, which is usually the doctor's or the lawyer's or the engineer's place of work. The home library should contain a variety of books on all manner of subjects — and how beautiful is the library in whose contents the cultivated woman has had a hand in the choosing! Every member of the family profits from it, above all those who keep to the house most of the time.
I once entered the house of a friend of mine, and my eye was caught by the beauty of the library and the ordering of the books in it. It was divided into a number of shelves suited to the books in size and breadth, and the works treating a single subject were ranged together, without regard to their language, on one side, so that the reader, when in need of some inquiry, could easily find the book that would set before him what concerned him in the least time and with the least trouble. And I noticed that the library was free of those books which parents so often own and which it is not well for children to read — whence problems arise in the family through the children's curiosity and their eagerness to read what they ought not. I saw in this both taste and a complete knowledge of the psychology of the young in
general, who must be kept away from certain readings that corrupt the fresh mind if it comes upon them before their time.
And if some think that children ought to be brought up in a way that guarantees they will not touch what they are not permitted to touch, I say that man has not, to this day, attained such an ideal. The child, by force of the inquisitiveness that is in him, loves to explore, is forever eyeing what is withheld from him, and desires it greatly. It is enough for him to know that his parents have forbidden him a book in the library for that book to become the object of his hopes and the pivot of his thinking. The sounder course in such a case — the case of there being children at this dangerous age — is that the home library be free, as my friend's library was, of any book whose prohibition would stir in the children the desire to read it; that is safer for their upbringing.
I noticed, too, that the housewife had taken particular care with one corner of her home library, which from the earliest childhood of her children she had set apart for them, bestowing on it her closest attention. And when
I congratulated her on this necessary and well-placed atten
Woman: Body and Soul (Book Advertisement)
The long-awaited book has appeared
WOMAN
Body and Soul
by Dr. Georges Hanna
Publishers
Dar al-Ahad — Beirut
To be ordered from the publishers
Price per copy: 200 piasters, or 230 milliemes, or ... fils