"Clarity of idea with simplicity" — drawing by Natalie Shulika, aged seven, of the Evangelical College for Girls.

... They claimed — and in their claim they spoke truly — that art in Lebanon is a wretched orphan, with none to show it tenderness and none to care for it. And artists are the last people to meet with encouragement, or with an understanding of the value of their works, in spirit or in substance.

... And they claimed too — and in their claim they spoke truly — that in the world of art we are still infants crawling; we open our eyes upon a painting to taste it, and perhaps we understand something of it, and perhaps we understand nothing at all...

And art among us, for a time now past, had no value. Did not our greatest artists fail, or nearly fail, to make a profession of art — for no reason but that our rich have not learned to spend their money along this road? And was not the flowering of art in Europe the fruit of its princes' passion, of their exalting of artists and their estimating them, in their day, at their true worth?...

Often I ask myself, between me and my own soul: what artistic renaissance would bud here in Lebanon, if men versed in art rose to power — men who would give it a place in the agendas of their work??

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"How like modern art it is?" — drawing by Marlene Marina, aged eight, of the kindergarten of the Lebanese Women's League