Gibran on His Twenty-Fourth Anniversary — His Friend the Artist Howayek Speaks of the Memorial

April eleventh marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of the death of Gibran Khalil Gibran. On this occasion, dear to our hearts as Lebanese and as Arabs, we bring our readers a conversation about the man remembered, from the lips of the artist Youssef Howayek, following the invitation extended to him by the people of Bsharri to erect a memorial to Gibran.

...In the hands of the artist Youssef Howayek was a picture of the memorial he had only just finished designing. He spread it before me and set about explaining his plan:

“The Gibran memorial, as you see, comprises a wall fifteen meters long and four meters high, to be built of cream-colored stone, plentiful in Bsharri. Gibran's head, of silver-colored copper and larger than life, is set in the center, and at its two sides are two columns ending in two torches, lit by night... On one of the columns are inscribed the titles of Gibran's works in Arabic, and on the other the titles of his works in English. In the middle of the memorial, on both sides, stand four panels of silver-colored copper, of human size, representing the most important of the drawings Gibran made.”

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...My interlocutor left off explaining, laid the picture of the memorial aside, and, with a long sigh, fixed his gaze upon the unknown, trying to sink into the depths of his memory and draw from it what the long years had kept his tongue from telling... I respected his moments of silence and musing; for our artist Howayek — I know him — is a mass of feeling, and this hour is his alone, to speak in it, as he pleases, of a friend dear to him...

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“...Our first acquaintance was on the benches of al-Hikma, in the closing years of the last century... Gibran a comely-looking youth, fluent in English, come from Boston to study Arabic. He was skilled at talking of what he knew of the arts of literature, poetry, and philosophy, and I was skilled at listening to him, deeply affected by his ways of thought. From this a friendship grew up between us, whose foundations were cemented by our common artistic bent... I, in the world of art, an infant crawling; he already near the confident step... Witness — had it a tongue to speak — the carob tree standing to this day on the heights of Ashrafiyeh: how many a sitting we had there on our weekly outings, exploring the horizons of Shakespeare, Aristotle, and al-Ma'arri, then bending over our colored pencils, snatching from nature glimpses of her sweet face — glimpses still dear to me among my artistic firstfruits... And I know well, to this day, where in those drawings Gibran's pencil passed over mine, finishing the red of a sunset glow or correcting the green of a bough... In those days we were seldom apart, except at the hour when the school bell startled us into line, in readiness for the walk... ‘Gibran in front,’ the proctor would insist, ‘and you, Youssef, are tall — fall back to the rear...’ How that regime used to make us seethe with anger, which afterward, in lowered voices, we would pour out in the shade of our carob tree, ending in a general feeling of discontent... with the state of the school... with the state of the country!!”

“Like a dream four years passed, at the end of which Gibran turned back to Boston, having mastered his Arabic to the point of wonder, and I sailed to Rome, a student of art, in which I drowned up to my ears...”

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“In Paris, in 1910, we met again, art having become an inseparable part of our inmost selves, of our daily life — and the delight of delights was our working in a single studio, and the resumption of our literary and philosophical rounds, in which Gibran had attained a lofty reach... and our hiring a single Model — for economy!! Those are precious months of my life.

“I remember well the day I turned toward him, the light streaming upon his head; I turned quickly from the model, and in three quarters of an hour I had finished drawing him... I remember how Gibran gasped at the drawing and how it pleased him!... And with his own brush he made this rounded shape on the chest. The drawing survives among his effects in Bsharri.”

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“After his return to America no coolness touched our friendship. We went on finding in the exchange of talk a solace for our two souls. In one of his letters to me he says:

“‘My labors are climbing toward the mountain's summit, my thoughts are calm, and my body enjoys all the felt pleasure that health can give; but I am not to be envied, Youssef; my soul is hungry and thirsty for a food and drink I know not where to find. The soul is a flower of the heights that cannot live in the shade; as for thorns, they live everywhere.’

“...And at times, when Gibran was in revolt against his condition, weary of the vexations that hemmed in his freedom and his flight, he would say to me, half in earnest and half in play: ‘Tomorrow, the day you make a memorial, let it be in the shape of a lion rearing and roaring!’”

And Howayek turned to me, remarking:

“But Gibran, my friend, did not resemble the lion; he was nearer the lamb, in his gentleness and the tenderness of his heart!”

“It is the wish of my life to see the memorial to Gibran completed before next summer, and it is within my power, if the artistic and material forces join hands to support the project — the memorial will make the loveliest impression on the souls of the emigrants, who hold Gibran sacred and will visit it without a doubt.” And he went back to the picture, completing his explanation:

“The memorial will rise there in the midst of the forest of Mar Sarkis, near the tomb, and the courses of the abundant springs will be turned toward it until it becomes a lake, guarding it from meddling hands; and on the face of its water will be mirrored its dancing, majestic shadow...”

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“It is a wish... my friend. I have a pressing longing to give it body. It has never ceased to haunt my soul since Gibran's face was taken from us in the spring of 1931. The plan of this memorial has existed since that time; the Paris papers published it and commented on it with interest, but circumstances did not favor me after my return to Lebanon. Then came my long seclusion, in which I cut myself off from the world; yet even so I never ceased thinking of Gibran's memorial and of how to keep my promise to him — until last month, when a band of people from Bsharri visited me, asking that the memorial be carried out; and my longing awoke, and my energy for the work was renewed.”

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There was a moment of silence... and my interlocutor turned toward the drawing, beguiling himself with gazing at it... hiding a tear wavering on his lashes...