In the Salon of the First Lady of Lebanon, Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun

Last month His Excellency the President of the Republic, Mr. Camille Chamoun, and Mrs. Zalfa, his wife, made a journey to Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and they met with a warmth of welcome that the pen is powerless to describe as it deserves. To the Lebanon of the emigrants in those three republics, the First Lebanese and his wife carried the affections of the Lebanon at home...

The hearts of the Lebanese waited in longing and eagerness for the return of their sovereign... and in an outpouring of feeling toward him they expressed their love and their loyalty...

The women of Lebanon, too, had their share in all this; no sooner had Mrs. Chamoun rested from the hardships of travel than they hastened to her palace, asking and inquiring...

And it pleased us that the pen of Miss Nur Salman should set down some passages of the First Lady of Lebanon's talk about this historic journey of hers...

Aboard a mighty airplane that defies the wondrous flying carpet, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Lebanon and his lady wife toured three republics of South America: Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

We followed the news of his visits and saw many of their scenes in the various newspapers. They returned to us after an absence of nearly a month, bearing from the lands across the seas tender memories and delightful news of our brothers in the Mahjar... of those who went away and did not come back — has the call of the mother homeland died, I wonder, in the depths of their souls?... Strange is our emigrant: he carries away from his homeland his youth, his vigor, and his energy, to bury them in a land far, far away... which takes from him more than it gives.

The reception hall of the presidential palace filled with ladies, the cream of women's society, come to congratulate Mrs. Chamoun on her safe return. She received them all with her aristocratic modesty — or say rather her modest aristocracy — and spoke to them of her journey and of what she had seen... and the talk of one returned from travel captivates the ear and delights the soul.

I asked her about woman in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and she smiled a smile that this time was not more eloquent than words... but she explained it by saying that no chance had been given her to know her at close quarters. She had met and gathered with the chosen few among women at sumptuous parties, thronged festivals, and crowded receptions. And woman, upon my life, on such occasions is a mass of elegance... a handful of tact, a phantom of grace, a moving beauty going its way...

In the course of the conversation the air of the hall caught my eye, as though it spoke of elegant simplicity. The furnishings are beautiful and simple, restful to the soul. And the mistress of the house talks with her visitors gently and companionably: no protocol, no ceremony, no formalities... for she has wearied of that constrained, artificial life from which her nature recoils.

The visit of the President and his lady wife was hurried and fleeting, like a dream... and the visit was also official. And so she was not able to come to know the many sides of life in those countries: the program was full, crammed with parties and sumptuous receptions...

Mrs. Chamoun told us of the mighty works of construction founded by Mrs. Eva Perón, the First Lady of Argentina, and especially those institutions which care for children, holding them to be the seeds of the nation's field. Then she expressed her admiration for all this, and for that great lady who raised up her nation and her society by her devoted work and her striving that knew neither weariness nor slackening. It is she who set down the story of her life in her book "The Story of My Life," which Malatios Khoury translated into Arabic. In it Madame Perón expresses her love for her people and her stubborn drive to serve them, to bring ease to the working class, and to lift its morale...

Perón, too, wanted to rise above the ranks of ordinary human beings — and what she wanted, she had.

Mrs. Chamoun also expressed her deep admiration for the project of Madame Vargas, wife of the President of the Republic of Brazil, which resembles the Red Cross institution in Lebanon. Then she spoke of the person of Brazil's First Lady and of her unceasing sacrifices in the cause of public service — she is a bereaved woman who shares the pain of the suffering and takes them as her kin...

Nor did Mrs. Chamoun forget the emigrants — and they are our children, our brothers, and our kinsfolk. She mentioned that she had come to know most of them and had visited the mansions of some, and she expressed her admiration for the distinguished positions many individuals among them have attained: this one the governor of a state, that one a deputy in the assembly, and these the owners of a fortune nearly equal to a quarter of the country's budget... All of which calls for gladness, contentment, and admiration.

These emigrants gave their President a magnificent welcome, and together with the government of their second country they decked the streets with his pictures and received him with cheers and with tears of joy... for he reminded them of the playground of their childhood and their youth, and told them that the clouds of servitude, with the sickness and want that follow from it, had lifted from Lebanon... It has become independent, standing on its own... and the marks of the distant, bygone past have vanished from it and within it. The village is no longer what it was, and the city has become a city — not a modest town whose streets could hardly be told from its alleys, its dregs from its cream. — And everything the poets say of it is true and truthful!

Mrs. Chamoun matched words with tangible proofs, for she stirred the admiration of the Brazilian ladies for the works and skill of the Lebanese, and presented to Madame Vargas a splendid table cover of the workmanship of Lebanon's women. She described it as a magnificent artistic piece, worked in interlacing silver threads.

Is it not enough that Lebanon's gift should be art, taste, and beauty?!...

From talk of Lebanon in the Mahjar we returned to talk of Lebanon in Lebanon. Mrs. Chamoun said, frankly and sincerely, that she prefers no country over it, and that we can make of it a beautiful earthly paradise. Then she expressed her readiness to take part in all of that. It is she who is founding a project for the comfort and aid of the blind; and a number of emigrants have donated toward the building of a shelter for these blind, to keep them from stumbling and guard them from the evil of want and dispersion. Mrs. Zalfa mentioned that their number in Lebanon is large, and that only a few of them work and earn their modest living.

Mrs. Chamoun spoke truly. In Lebanon there are mighty possibilities that must be made to grow, and in Lebanon there are hands which, if they work, will give as Madame Perón and Vargas and their colleagues gave before them...