measures responsibility, the bearer of his family's glory and the raiser of its edifice.
Honor of the flag and of soldiery. The flag and soldiery remind me of an anthem that had the greatest effect on my life as a citizen. We were little girls sitting on the school bench, and one day they taught us an English anthem and then translated it for us so that we would understand its meaning. The anthem said:
In the battle the fight raged hot around the flag, for it had nearly fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the bodies fell around it, each man raising it and then handing it to his comrade before he fell. Suddenly the commander cried: Soldiers, this is your flag — ransom it! And suddenly, too, a boy sprang forward and raised the flag; he carried it to the hill and planted it in its place, far out of the enemy's reach; then he fell, and was carried to the tent. The battle ended, and the commander hurried to the tent that held the boy hero, to thank him. He knelt beside the bed — and a cry shook the whole countryside, and the commander was shouting: My son! My only son! I thought you safe at home! And the boy brought out, with his last breaths: Forgive me, father, for I ran away from my bed. Tell mother to forgive me, for I shall not come back to her. Tell her to be proud of me, for I have ransomed the flag.
That was the anthem; and I remember, after all this time, how our small voices would ring up to the sky every time we reached the ransoming of the flag. And I remember how we understood — how I understood, from that day and at that early age — that there is something worth a man's ransoming with his soul; and I understood that children can understand, if they are made to understand — that is, if we want them to be soldiers for the country.
Honor of the homeland — that dear piece cut from people's very hearts — how the little ones must love it and ransom it! The good name of my homeland is
what the foreigner carries back to his own country, in its images clean or dirty, strong or weak, just as I myself draw it before the foreigner by my conduct and my character...
Love of my homeland: the best of lands is the one that bore me. Every leaf of every tree in it is beloved and dear to my soul; every grain of its dust is mine — it is of the remnants of my body from the day the clay was kneaded and its crumbs fell away. Every mountain, every plain, every river of it is the most beautiful of its kind in the world. I am its child: if it is lost, then I am lost, and shamed, and humbled; its pride is my pride, and its stain is my stain.
How many in our homes, I wonder, draw this picture for our children...? How many of
our mothers understand that the homeland's honor and good name are a trust placed in her hands and in her child's?
And finally: if people in the West have come to fear this moral collapse — because they know that nations whose morals collapse perish — and so have awakened and set to shoring up morals by every possible means, how much more do we, being as we are, need this awakening; how fitting it would be for those of us who carry pens to join hands with the schools and the mothers, to stand against this current — against these picks that are hacking at the foundation of our edifice. God rest Shawqi, who said:
If a people's edifice is struck by a weakness of character, it is a weakness in the foundation.
Exquisite Form BRASSIERES
Exquisite brassieres
This is one of the models of the famous
"Exquisite Form" brassieres
Beauty...
Proportion...
And durability...
Agents and depot
The stores of
Jibrail Mushi
MIRACLE OF Figure Flattery