For Emigrant Lebanon: The Lebanese Women's League's Banquet for the Poet George Saydah

The Lebanese Women's League held a dinner banquet at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut in honor of the great poet Mr. George Saydah, in recognition of his services, and those of the emigrants, to the school which the League has sponsored in this country — the emigrants' funds having been a strong pillar in the "building" of this school.

Invited to this banquet were Mr. Edouard Abou Jaoude, Director General of National Education, together with a number of notables, journalists, and distinguished ladies of the capital. The banquet happened to coincide with the resolve of the League's president, Mrs. Heneni Tarcha, to travel to America; so that besides being a tribute to the great poet, it was a farewell demonstration for Mrs. Tarcha. At the close of the elegant banquet, Mrs. Ellen Rihan rose and delivered a speech, the text of which follows:

"Ladies and gentlemen:

When banquets of honor are held, the speakers usually follow one another enumerating the virtues of the guest of honor — his generosity, his learning, his intelligence — putting him in an awkward position and abashing his modesty. But tonight I shall not discomfit the noble emigrant Mr. George Saydah, for he is a friend of the Lebanese Women's League; speaking, then, in the name of the League and its president, I address to him a brief word.

Your visit, sir, to the kindergarten of the Lebanese Women's League, your concern for its affairs, your kindness toward it, and the questions I heard you ask about our work — all this made us feel that you are a friend of the League who delights in its flourishing and wishes it success. Our project, with its two branches, the kindergarten and the elementary section, is a national Lebanese school born on the day our independence was born, and the day of its birth was the happiest of Lebanon's days. It has grown and thrived, and its growth will continue, God willing, thanks to the generosity and zeal of friends here and the help of the emigrants in the Mahjar — and you, sir, are one of them. I beg you to accept our heartfelt thanks, and to carry them to your brothers, whose burning love for this beloved homeland the distance between us has not yet extinguished. And if the Lebanese Women's League has deputized you to convey its feelings toward the emigrants, it has deputized the finest of spokesmen — for you are the inspired poet who fashions meanings so that they move hearts and feelings.

What adds to our pride in you is that, despite your distance from Arab soil, you compose verse in the language of the Arabs, and it comes forth as poetry that delights our hearts and sets their strings quivering, and makes us believe that the language of our fathers and forefathers will never be effaced by distance from the homeland's soil — for it possesses, in the hearts of some of the emigrants, temples in which it chants and sings, weaving from words firm bonds of affection and brotherhood that tie us to our emigrant half, which we love and in which we take pride.

And who more than you, poet and friend, deserves our affection and our pride?"

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The speaker of the evening, Mrs. Ellen Rihan, had the tact and good taste to seize the opportunity of this large gathering of League members and their friends, and bade farewell to Mrs. Heneni Tarcha with moving words. She said:

"The president of the Lebanese Women's League has honored me by deputizing me to present the League's thanks to Mr. George Saydah; but let it be known that honoring our noble friend does not make me forget that she is departing, and I shall not close without a word of farewell to her.

She is our beloved president, and she has won the love of each one of us, alongside the respect, esteem, and recognition we bear her for her diligence, her devotion in her work, and her placing of the interest of the Lebanese Women's League above every other interest.

You may be sure, Madam, that you are the friend of each one of us, and you know that our hearts accompany you on your journey, filled with prayer to God that He keep you, grant you success, and return you to Lebanon, the field of your labors, safe and successful. As for your own heart, we know well that it will melt with longing for the work you have fostered since its birth, which you loved and for which you sacrificed much. Your thoughts will be, every minute, with your companions who worked with you and to whom you were always the finest example. And your prayer will be for the Lebanese Women's League, with its two projects and its members, and for beloved Lebanon: the Lebanon at home and the Lebanon abroad."