near to it and it did not draw near; I made love to it and it did not listen to me. I stretched out my arm, and poplar leaves made a pillow of it, and the winds twined about it. I gazed upon my self and glimpsed it gazing upon me; I gathered all my love into one look, and saw its like in its two pupils; and I understood that in it was flame the like of the flame in my own gaze, and that only the water of the spring kept its blaze from flaring up. So I rushed to it—and embracing it, embraced annihilation.
I understood from those who have come down to these abodes that they searched for me in the spring and did not find my bones. And they glorified the avenging heaven: not content with making me love my own self as Echo had loved me, it destroyed me as it destroyed her; and as she vanished without a trace, so I vanished.
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They said and they said; and in some of what they said there is truth, though they do not know it.
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Without a trace she vanished—save a curse that soon leafed out; and without a trace I vanished—save a hidden thing that turned, on the bank of the spring, into a beloved narcissus.
What do I care that they did not think of it: their beloved is a curse, and the outcast a beloved narcissus (she loved, and cursed; and out of the harsh came forth sweetness).
Tomorrow she will come, and say over to me: "and your love is strange, strange." And she will purse her lips, ready for the harvest; and she may say it is the most delicious thing she wanted, and she may say it is the basest; but she will tell me that she used to gather narcissus in secret, and that the narcissus, among her people, has become the lover's gift.
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They say I invented things out of nothing. How I wish I could guffaw: did they not understand that I scattered her, and annihilated my self, and a passion that might have begotten—so as to create out of all these things: that one young thing?
Is There Such a Thing as a Problem Child?

Is my child a problem? Why is he set apart by his behavior? Questions many a mother has asked herself when peculiar signs appear in her child. Not every unfamiliar behavior peculiar to a child counts as a problem; and to ward off confusion as to what is natural and what is not, here, Madam, are these three tests:

1 – You must observe whether the behavior is chronic; then it counts as a problem.

2 – You must observe whether it can be changed by sound guidance.

3 – You must observe whether it has some justification, for by removing the cause that lies behind it you do away with it.

The theory prevailing in the art of child-rearing calls for the necessity of understanding the child's psychology; and how greatly it needs to be applied to the child who is a problem to his family! The foundation on which it rests is that every behavior has a cause for its existence. Take this simple example: a child, after having learned to speak correctly, went back to "baby talk," and this development alarmed his parents; but the cause goes back to the presence of a new baby in the family, who won the parents' affection entirely, which drove his brother to resort to "baby talk" in hopes of drawing attention.

The feeling of parental love is a moral restraint for the child, in that it helps him to uproot such of his habits or behaviors as his family detests. The child tries to win his parents' approval so long as he feels their tenderness; and even if a behavior occurs to him that pleases him but meets no encouragement from his parents, he gives it up in order to please them and to keep their love. And he goes on concealing his unwelcome behaviors until the occasion offers itself and he senses the loss of their love—whether in a word they have spoken or in an act that proves it—whereupon his suppressed behavior appears in its plainest forms, and he then becomes stubborn, restrained only by force—and that only for a time—or a fabricator of tales, and so on among the behaviors that are counted problems. Hence we see that children who have neither power nor device to give up their unapproved behaviors are worthier of our tenderness and our mercy than of our reproach and our blame.

Aidah Shakir Sab
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