Personality of the Month: Mrs. Hassana Fathallah al-Daouk

An educated, aware Lebanese citizen, she served the Lebanese Women's League last year as acting president. A mother of three children and a modern housewife, she recently returned from a second journey to Europe in the company of her husband, Mr. Hassan al-Daouk. She spoke to the representative of "The Woman's Voice" about her most striking impressions of France, England, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Istanbul.

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Q — I know that you are one of those with a passion for travel, and this is not the first time you have gone far from family and home to roam wide new horizons. What is it that endears travel to you?

A — Among the treasured sayings of the Arabs is this: "He whom his Lord loves, He grants him a view of His kingdom." And the French writer Philippe Morand wished that his skin might be stripped off after his death and made into a traveling bag. So you see that the impulse to travel is shared between the mind that thirsts for learning, knowledge, benefit, and provision, and an instinct — an inner feeling that drives man to movement and wandering. I believe that travel is the great, all-embracing school from whose varied and manifold streams a person can draw such knowledge and experience as is not to be had at the school desk or in the university hall. It places within reach of our hearing, our sight, and our senses geography, history, society, politics, art, commerce, and industry. And on the other hand it is a supreme, incomparable pleasure: once you have passed beyond the soil of the homeland aboard an airplane or a steamship, a fine, delicious feeling steals into your inmost self — a feeling of release from the cares and bonds with which daily local life burdens you.

Q — What are your overall impressions of the countries you visited on your many journeys?

A — I have visited France more than once and stayed there for long months; I have also visited England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Turkey, and the sister Arab countries: Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.

If I wished to express in a single word the sum of the impression these countries left on my soul, I might say without exaggeration: it is "admiration." It shows itself in the aspects of life in each of them — in alertness, good management, and order, and in the safeguarding of the national heritage in the fields of art and industry. I regret to note its absence in more than one aspect of our own life.

Take France, for example: her people and her government have appreciated the natural and historical wealth latent in the beauty of her lands and cities, and have spared no effort to turn that wealth to account. The cities of the Azure Coast, Paris, and many historic towns and places are furnished with the utmost possible means of attraction and facilities for tourism: excellent roads; splendid hotels of every class; beautiful pleasure-grounds; festivals and seasons of manifold celebrations, arranged with the greatest order, beauty, and variety (fashion shows — carnival — flower parades — opera performances — ballet — musical, athletic, and cultural events, etc.) that draw the foreign tourist, who spends generously for the enjoyment and pleasure he finds.

As for England: the impression London left on me — and I believe it is shared between me and the majority of those who have visited it — is that order and deliberateness for which the Englishman is famous. Although it is counted among the largest cities of the world in area and the most densely peopled, it is not the widest in its squares nor the straightest in its streets, and traffic accidents there hardly ever occur; yet it is rich in its spacious public parks, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the area of Hyde Park, Regent's Park, and St. James's Park may well exceed the area of Beirut!!!

And Belgium, small in area and in people compared with the great powers surrounding her, enjoys a distinguished economic and industrial position; she is among the richest states of Europe today, thanks to her flourishing industry and commerce and the riches she reaps from the colony of the "Belgian Congo." Earnestness and hard toil prevail in the nature of her people. I liked Brussels very much: it resembles Paris in form, with one great difference — its merry atmosphere.

As for Germany, in whose flanks the war left bleeding wounds and a destruction whose trace will never vanish, she today shakes the rubble from her shoulders and rises with astonishing strength and speed. The city of Munich, for example, which destruction had engulfed, has recovered more than thirty percent of its buildings within three years. And what truly stirs admiration is the tremendous effort, and the endurance in unceasing work, that the German woman is putting forth in this critical period of her country's life, to restore life to what it once was.

As for Austria and her capital, Vienna of the Blue Danube, it is a beautiful land whose sons sway to drink and song, singing of the immortal glories written upon the pages of history by the likes of Beethoven, Schubert, and Strauss, and of the palaces of their bygone kings, heedless of the want and hardship in which they flounder.

Switzerland has become famous for her fitness for tourism, thanks to organization, management, and preparedness in every field — though her climate is harsh: snow falls without interruption in winter, so that avalanches are frequent, and rain falls in summer with many storms. How I wish Lebanon might become the Switzerland of the East — Lebanon of the temperate climate, no less than she in beauty and in possibilities.

Italy: land of art, taste, and beauty. I loved her from the first visit, and on the second I found that between our people and hers there is a great resemblance of character — but the spirit of art and merriment runs in their veins. Her markets are full of everything beautiful. The Italian cities have gathered a choice collection of the treasures of the ages, from two thousand years ago down to our own day: ancient buildings, carvings, statues, paintings — all of them by the most famous artists in the entire world.

Andalusia, our lost paradise, is rich in the Arab heritage, to which the present Spanish government has awakened, surrounding it with great care. You may well be astonished at what the Arab arts attained in carving, mosaic, and architecture; the Spaniards still rely on the irrigation works left by Arab hands in Granada, Córdoba, and Seville, works of the utmost splendor and perfection. What horrified me was their beloved sport, the bullfight: there is in it such savagery and cruelty that I fainted away — but I came to at the din of the tremendous applause and enthusiasm when the fighters displayed their courage and their arts in that duel.

And finally Istanbul, land of the Ottomans and seat of the civilization of the Byzantines. It is very rich in the monuments that bear witness to this. Its famous palaces are filled with artistic treasures that tell of the life of luxury its sultans enjoyed. They call it the land of the seven hundred minarets, because it contains no small number of great mosques with numerous minarets. Nor shall I ever forget the captivating beauty of the Bosphorus and its islands, which adds to its splendor and majesty.

As for Iraq, Egypt, and Syria, there is no room to speak of them — most of us have visited these sister Arab countries and know much about them.