Weddings and funerals — that is life!...

The truths of the universe pass before us, swift as a merry tune or slow as a melody weighted with long silence...

Do those tunes and melodies, do you think, invade every heart — at one moment breathing gladness into it, at another wringing from it a sigh??

Sheikh Munir Takieddine, Director General of the Ministry of Defense, says in his spontaneous way, describing his feeling when he comes upon a bridal car or a funeral: — I grieve in the first case because I am not the groom, and I rejoice in the second because I am not the dead man!!

Hiyam Rabiz, student at Beirut College for Women. Q — What do you feel when you come upon a bridal car or a funeral? A — I grieve when I see a bride, and I pity her lot, because a girl's life, in my view, is freer and less toilsome

than a wife's. As for when I see a funeral, I try as far as I can to shield my eyes, so as not to remember that every living thing has an end...

Aida Faghali, secretary at the Tekton Company. — It is absurd for the bride to pass through the street amid uproar and commotion

and the blaring of car horns. This is proof of a deficiency in the refinement of our tastes, for beauty lies not in din and buffoonery but in calm and composure. As for our

funerals, they always remind me of the difference between the classes of society, which shows itself even in death — before which all are supposed to be equal... Yet I have never felt sorrow except before the poor man's procession.

Fuad Rifqa, M.A. at the American University. 1 — I say: here is a woman who has surrendered her freedom for the sake of an unguaranteed happiness. 2 — A

man clapping before he dies. The great farce is over!

Sami Makarem, M.A. at the American University. 1 — God! When, I wonder, will my turn come! 2 — God! When will my grandfather's turn come! (His grandfather is rich!)