well despise her rich countrymen because they are ignorant...

In American society it is said of her that she is haughty... you see at her feet the men of letters and the poets, small and abject..."

— Nothing about her concerns me except that her marvelous rhythmic dancing has opened before my eyes new, wide horizons in art, literature, and life. Before I saw her dance and noticed how she expresses with her movements and her tremors the feelings of the heart and the soul — I used to imagine that dancing was "writhing about, waist-swaying, and jaw-clacking!"

Gibran interrupted me in the tone of the prophets: "...It is not the exquisite dancing that opened the horizons before your eyes... it is the air of Paris... where the fingers of the gods play! Ah, how happy we are here! How far we are from the world of buying and selling... and the scowling world of theology... and the depraved world of politics... There is no doubt, Yusuf, that the gods have granted us precious treasures which we must guard against the thieves of the dark..."

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On the morning of the following day this letter reached me: "Dear sir: If you will allow me, I shall visit you for a few minutes in the company of a friend of mine, next Thursday morning at eleven o'clock, so that we may make your acquaintance and see your works of art. With thanks in advance, be so kind, dear master, as to accept my esteem and my greetings... Isadora Duncan."

At the appointed time the famous dancer came in the company of her friend, and I received her in my work clothes... She asked me: "The master?..." — "Yes, madam!" Her eyes went wide with astonishment, and she came forward gracefully, extending toward me her soft hand... "I am Isadora," she said, "and this is my friend Miss Johannes."

The dancer let her gaze wander about the place, speak-ing to herself: "Exactly as I imagined it... simplicity, drawings, books... and flowers." Then she looked at me and spoke to her companion in a language I did not understand... and continued in French, addressing her words to me: "Before anything else, tell me: where is Lebanon? Have you a map?" I at once spread before her a small map of the Asian continent and pointed with a pencil to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. She fixed her spectacles and began reading aloud: "Damascus, Jerusalem... and Lebanon? Where is Lebanon? D'Annunzio told me that Lebanon is the home of Adonis, and that it is shaded by cedar forests..."

I said to her: "So, madam, were the mountains of Lebanon in olden times, in the days of Adonis. But now, of the shady cedar forests, only one small 'sacred' grove remains in the heights of the mountains..."

Miss Johannes commented, laughing, in a naive, childlike tone: "And silly me — I always pictured Lebanon as one towering mountain with a cedar on its summit!!" And she gazed at me with two eyes of the sky's own blue... a long gaze holding some sweet, obscure meaning.

And the gracious visitor asked me, as she contemplated the statue of the dancer — while I contemplated a few white hairs that had invaded her temples, and a violet halo ringing her eyes —

She asked me: "Tell me, have you seen Isadora dance more than once?" — Several times...

She went on, contemplating herself in the statue without looking at me: — "And would you know her in this everyday dress... and do you always love her?"

Without waiting for the answer she continued: — "Please show me what drawings you have. With one of my pupils I saw a drawing of yours that pleased me greatly, and there was born in me the desire to see others of