From the Letters of Julia Dimashqiyah

... The literary gift in which Julia Dimashqiyah most excelled was the art of letter-writing; among the treasured possessions of every friend, woman or man, of those who loved and admired her, there is a letter, or letters, wrapped in silk... and steeped in perfume...

What a long, tender breath was hers, and how she addressed the depths of the heart with such sincerity and devotion!..

Here are some samples of her letters... The first is an excerpt from a letter to her old friend, the mother of Farid Zayn al-Din.

And here is another morning that I greet after a long night spent, like hundreds of its kind, without ever tasting sleep.

Yet this night, for all the anxiety that beset me, was for me like a stroll in a garden of paradise compared with the desolation, the pain, and the despair I used to suffer in the sleepless nights gone by; for from the moment I sensed the first signs of insomnia threatening me, I stubbornly resolved not to allow my other half — that is, my body — to come between my soul and you, whatever it might cost me. And indeed, I left this body to its own devices, to wrestle with pain alone and to bear the consequences of that mighty resistance it puts up in order to win more life for itself alone, while I clung close to you until the break of dawn...

How strange a thing this body is, my friend! — this frame that belongs to me; for despite its small account, and the triviality of the wares that fit it for life — bone, flesh, and blood, the stuff of its existence — it will go on driving me to seek more of life, toward ambition! toward hope!! And what hope, I wonder!! — when it possesses no equipment to tempt it, and to tempt me, to remain in this clamorous world except this threadbare cage, its limbs and ribs tottering, battered by pain and deprivation on every side. And it seems to me it will carry on in this same mighty onrush, this open defiance of medicine and doctors and all the laws of nature, until the day comes when it does battle with the hydrogen bomb in the arena of death and annihilation!!

And now, what have I to do with this body? Let me leave it to itself and return to you with what I have drawn from you, with what appeared to me during my nightly solitude before it escapes me and I can no longer remember any of it: for this is what used to happen to me whenever I resolved to set down the thoughts that came to me at night, believing that some of them were beautiful and precious and worth recording; but no sooner would dawn break and my reaching for the pen draw near than they would vanish from my memory, as though they had never been.

How I wished my night would last longer — this night in which I practiced in earnest, with certainty, and with success, breaking free of my body and its pains — breaking free of all these fetters, and of the thoughts that so often troubled the serenity of the intervals when I was free of pain; chief among them this conscience that clings to me as flesh clings to bone, and that lies ever in wait for me — especially at night — to remind me of every error, every shortcoming, every slip of the tongue that escaped me the day before.

Was it not you who opened before me the paths of this spiritual excursion, so that I saw with my soul what no human being can see with the naked eye in the light of day of the fine details of the inner life, while he is shackled by every kind of material and social fetter and consideration?..

And what a wonderful excursion it was! And how happy I was! — moving, in the solitude of night, among memories of the friendship and comradeship that united our inclinations and our aims! I traversed all those stages we had covered together, step by step, with great caution and deliberation, lest my foot should slip, as sometimes happened to me when I went about in the world of waking and activity.

My darling, you must scorn those childish attachments that young men and men form with women and girls to no purpose or profit, which serve only to debase their morals and chip away at their good name, until they become a morsel on people's tongues and the object of their criticism... God forbid, my little daughter, that you should ever cast at the face of any man, whoever he may be, an unseemly glance, or permit any young man, whoever he may be, to flirt with you or court you — save him who is to be your husband and the companion of your life — or that your pen should trace a single word you would regret once the days have passed over its writing. This does not mean that I want you to keep away from the company of men and men of letters, or from conversing with them — no! On the contrary, I desire with all my heart that you should enjoy complete freedom, now that you have entered the age that qualifies you for it and have received a portion of upbringing and education that fits you for this freedom. And be assured, Salwa, that a strong spirit and a proud soul cannot fail to master whoever converses with them or draws near to them; for the ray of sincerity blended with courtesy and modesty cannot vanish or be hidden, even from the blind or the wicked.

Walk on, my daughter, armed with virtue, and do not be afraid; keep your head held high. May my Lord preserve you, my Salwa, my solace, from any hour in which you should be obliged to bow your head before any human being. Teach the daughters of your sex that moral freedom armed with chastity is the whole delight of life. Do not be afraid to place your hand in the hand of any man whatsoever, even a wretch; for by the strength of your character and the loftiness of your morals you must lift him up to the highest heaven, if only for a single moment of his life.

Nihad, Tata's darling: after the middle of this night you will bid farewell to another year of your life, and in the morning you will look out upon the world of youth — a world whose attainment you no doubt long for, with all its enticements and bewitching allurements..!

If I were in your place, Nihad — after my long experience of life — I would not hasten the close of this stage you are now in before I had made full provision for reaching the stage of youth — that stage in which alluring play and amusement stand side by side with the earnestness and activity that will collide at every one of life's turnings....

You are no doubt aware that the vigor of youth has always been, and still is, attractive and alluring, and that youth is the hope of the world and the goal of its gaze; but at the same time we must not let slip from our minds what accompanies it: the ways of amusement and frivolity, and the bodily and material pleasures that hurl down the greater number of today's young men and blind their eyes to such a degree — deluding them into believing that they, and they alone, are the masters of their souls and their destiny, and that they hold, in their own hands, the right to toy with all the resources of life, the lean of them and the fat, without any restraint or watcher — and they reckon that the world, and all that is in it and upon it, lies beneath their feet. And thus — as is happening today — all the temptations, and how perilous they are, conspire to wrench the young man from his wholesome surroundings, and from the wholesome inclinations lying deep within him, down into the pits of seduction and corruption!!!

Nihad! I beg you, by God, Tata's dear, give ear to this plea that I bring to you, carrying with it all that I possess of a mother's feeling: that you study these lines of mine with care and deliberation, not once but several times, before the curtain rises on your seventeenth year, and whenever you find yourself alone and sense the first signs of weakness within you.

Beware of making light of my plea, for I have placed within it my intense love for you, and for your mother, and for your father, together with a boundless hope, which accompanies my final hours, that you, Nihad, may be the apple of her eye and the emblem of her pride in all your ways.

No! I do not covet for you a wrestling with destiny in matters where your mental gifts have not aided you, but rather on the moral side; for there, without doubt — if you so will — you shall shine; and I sensed your readiness for victory of this kind in our last conversation — do you remember??

Never in my life have I seen you as I saw you in our last hour alone together: you were overflowing with ambition, vitality, and happiness as you recounted to me the esteem your teachers and comrades hold for you! Is not this success of character and conduct more precious than all the treasures of the earth!!

Nothing remains for you, then, but to review your bodily, mental, and spiritual states from time to time, and to introduce into them the adjustments that will enable you to march toward your goal and that accord with the nature of the aim to which you aspire.

And finally, you must be certain, and keep ever before your eyes, that this aim can be achieved only if you prepare yourself for it by organizing your time — your hours of study, your hours of rest, and of sleep — in such order as will enable you to follow the road that leads to an eminent and respected place among your people.

And you will arrive, God willing, at what you desire, and what we desire for you, my darling.

Tata