A View of Salma's Literature

I knew her for the first time on the orator's platform, where she captivated hearts with the sweetness of her speech and stirred the emotions with her meanings.

I knew her in the prime of her youth and the beauty of her young womanhood, at the age of beautiful dreams — the dream of the happy home, the faithful, loving companion, the contented family. But such is fate: if it is serene one day, it scowls for days. And what are the calamity of sickness, the loss of wealth, and death? They cannot be measured against the loss of trust in one whom she loved, and the loss of hope in one on whom you had counted. All these clouds — the clouds of despair and misfortune — gathered thick above that singular personality; yet she was like the oak, steadfast, mocking the storms and hurricanes, or like the airplane that soars above the layers of black clouds and beholds the rays of the shining sun.

She carried the pains of her soul in her heart, and of the strings of her lyre only one string remained — she clasped her to her breast, shielding her from life's misfortunes, and lavished upon her all the love and tenderness a mother's breast contains. And when she no longer had need of her help, she turned to educating the young girls of Lebanon, each of them a daughter to her. She served the Arabic language by way of instruction, with her beautiful style making the language of the fathers and forefathers beloved to the rising generation; and she joined with other ladies in raising the standing of Arabic in the curricula of the government and private schools, in the days when colonialism was imposing its language by force. She served the women's cause with her pen, and gave much of her time to the service of the wretched, the imprisoned, and the outcast.

And after a long struggle she traveled to the Mahjar, to live beside a tender-hearted brother who would shield her from life's assaults, at an age when one needs a strong arm for support. She carried in her heart the most beautiful pictures of Lebanon; she raised her country's name in the Mahjar and awakened longing and yearning for the old homeland. And after she was stricken by the loss of her brother, she returned broken-winged to her homeland, Lebanon, which she loved and served with her candid pen and her overflowing feelings, seeing nothing but the aspects of goodness in her Lebanon and the aspects of goodness in her faithful friends. Grief had not the power to silence her overflowing pen, and pain had not the power to quench the flame of intelligence that shone in her conversation and her writings. Salma Sayegh was a great woman and a great writer, whose like time rarely brings; our loss in her is immense.