... These are the wise experiences of three great world personalities, casting light on a grave subject which our writers seldom approach...

The span between forty-five and fifty-five forms a very delicate stage in a woman's life — this is a truth we must all acknowledge, whatever the circumstances that surround us. The danger lies in our looking upon this span as a loss, or as the beginning of an end, whereas we can, on the contrary, consider it a starting point for new hopes, and an era for the enrichment of fine pastimes... For in this period a woman can look forward to settled health, free of turbulent emotional troubles, and this opens a field to her and gives her ample time for intellectual creation and invention; yet her thinking gifts and her mental capacities will scatter and die down unless she works to nourish and develop them by every way and means.

In this period a woman's family troubles and household occupations grow fewer, and it becomes possible for her to turn her activity to other pursuits and to a wider field. There is the social field and the practical field... She can hold a position for which she is paid a wage, thereby restoring to herself much self-confidence and self-esteem — that is, if she is in need of

something material. If, on the contrary, she is not, then she does well to turn her efforts and her activity to the social projects that bring abundant good and benefit to herself and to her nation. There are the charitable, humanitarian associations — and how many there are in Lebanon! — which are in pressing need of the working woman's hand. Do not hesitate, then, Madam, to extend a helping hand to them; you are well aware how much this helps to develop the personality, to strengthen it, and to reinforce it — quite apart from the enjoyment and pleasure you yourself feel while carrying out these noble humanitarian and social works...

Then too it becomes possible for you, Madam, in this period, to take up again some of the pastimes you cast aside