My Opinion of “Salma's” Literature

In enumerating your qualities, O Salma, I shall not resort to your singular gifts to draw those qualities from them, nor to your standing in the world of letters, or the sweetness of your charming talk; for art is a gift from God, who lavished upon you the most precious and noble of His gifts, and made you an enchantress among the enchanters of thought, and thereby gave you the most glorious of rewards.

As for my article about you, it shall go no further than proclaiming before all what I heard from you as you lay on your deathbed. For you said to me, before I crossed the threshold: “Lebanon is beautiful, my dear, and to serve it is a sacred duty!”

That is the testament, and that was the message!

“Teaching, creating, building!”

No sooner had you reached your twentieth spring than you turned — unlike the rest of the young, who are carried away by the vanity of youth — to serious work; you were the first woman to free herself from the traditional idleness and to prove that in work there is elevation for man.

You embraced teaching, made it a mission, and built souls. So that when I came to know you twenty years after that, I saw your pupils become your faithful friends, men and women devoted to service: striving to improve the local industries by founding the annual exhibitions in the workers' service, or fighting illiteracy by establishing primary schools, or opposing fanaticism and tyranny on every plane.

Ah, I can render you today, Salma, only a little of your due; these few lines are no more than a wreath laid upon your tomb by a companion whom you have preceded to the other abode, though she is older than you in years, and the days have borne down upon her with their burdens.

So peace be upon you in your pure resting place — a thousand peaces! And Lebanon, which knew in you steadfastness of conviction and firmness of faith, is certain that you will go on serving it in God's paradise! For your soul will seek the aid of the Almighty in guarding Lebanon, watching over it, and making its children happy.

Evelyne Bustros

I knew her from the days when I was there in Palestine — our lost paradise. A generous friend presented me with her book al-Nasamat.. and I began to read it, and found everything in it soft as the breezes.. light of spirit like them.. refreshing like them.. For in al-Nasamat you read the words of a creature who has suffered much and suffers still, and you take comfort, because there are in the world sufferers like you.. and you stand up with courage, strengthened to bear your cross, because there are in the world those who bear their cross with a patience like yours, or greater..

And I came to know Salma Sayegh at close hand, and the picture al-Nasamat had drawn in my imagination did not change.. a gentle woman: poetic in her talk as she is poetic in her written style... a tactful, intelligent woman who knows how to win your affection with her conversation just as she wins it with her writings.

Perhaps the strength of feeling is the first thing that meets you in the literature of Salma Sayegh, and the first thing that stamps everything she writes.. You never read a story of hers without feeling the human emotion, aching over misery, pour from its every sentence.. You never read an article of hers without seeing her treat the tragedies of society with a surging feeling that suffers along with society's wretched; and when she demands the rights of woman, there is the feeling in revolt against injustice, which in its revolt well-nigh shatters the fetters..

It is a splendid literature of feeling; and if we add to it the soft, poetic style.. we understand how Salma Sayegh won the hearts of her readers and drew them with a silken thread, soft and strong, to read everything she writes, and then to admire everything she writes.

And Salma has passed on, and literature — I do not say women's literature only — has lost by her death a sensitive, humane pen.. Its mistress did not take it up for amusement, nor in pursuit of fame.. nor to breathe out her pains through it and so ease her own soul.. She took it up to deliver a message — whose sum is that man is the brother of man: so let him have mercy on that brotherhood..

Asma Tubi