Table of Contents

Page

The Lebanese Women's League's Condolences . . . . . 3

Pictures and Memories . . . . . 4–5

Furniture for the Modern Home . . . . . 6–7

Ashtarut (Poetry) . . . . . 8–9

A Wound the Balm Reopened . . . . . 11–13

The Front Room (A Story) . . . . . 14–17

A Tour of the Underworld . . . . . 18–19

Schools for Teachers of Children . . . . . 20–22

Training the Child's Heart and Will . . . . . 23–25

My Child Swallowed a Pin! . . . . . 26–27

The Hero of the Turkish Renaissance . . . . . 28–29

Return (A Story) . . . . . 30–33

Sufism . . . . . 34–35

Laws of Marriage Annulment . . . . . 36–38

Fighting Tuberculosis . . . . . 39–41

In Society . . . . . 43–47

The Kitchen . . . . . 48–49

Tidbits . . . . . 50

Issue Eight — Seventh Year

August 1951

Fayza el-Solh

The time: before the First Great War.

The place: my house, standing opposite the old British Consulate — "Tabaris" today.

... My husband, Dr. Farid Kassab, called me, and I came; he took me by the hand to the reception room, and there I found myself face to face with an elegant young man with a radiant face. His complexion was white, tinged with rose, pulsing with strength and health. He said:

"Let me introduce you to my friend and brother, Riad el-Solh." The two sat talking, and I sat listening... They spoke of their days in Istanbul and in Paris; my husband had studied dentistry in the latter and had been sent to the former as representative of the Arab Orthodox of Palestine at the time of the famous dispute between them and the Greek Patriarchate in Jerusalem.

The visit came to an end and Riad went his way; and I learned — while the world, the world of youth in Lebanon and Syria, was in labor with the renaissance of independence from the Ottoman Sultanate — that this young man of the radiant face, whom at first glance I had taken for a thoroughbred son of Paris, was the mainspring of the national movement among the Arab youth dwelling on the banks of the Bosphorus.

The days passed, and the lands of the Arabic-speaking peoples were severed from the Ottoman throne; guarantors of our independence were named, here and in Iraq and in Syria and in Palestine, and in place of the Turkish army came armies of the fair, the black, and the brown. And no sooner had the commanders of those armies taken up their posts in the capitals than they found upon their desks the dossiers of the dyed-in-the-wool colonizers in those lands — those for whose sake armies are mustered and campaigns organized only to defend their dinars, only to protect their dinars...

And naturally Riad — Riad who outran his generation — returned to a struggle of long breath and far reach.

I met him after that at the Secular College, at the gatherings that used to be held for that free Frenchman, our friend and the friend of liberty, the late Edmond Binard.

One day he was invited to deliver a lecture, and he spoke of the aims of youth and of their duty. I still remember his citing this verse:

My companion wept when he saw the road before him and knew for certain we were bound for Caesar. I said to him: let not your eye weep — we strive for a kingdom, or we die and stand excused!