wisdom and pulsing with life. In its introduction she says: "With life we walk, hurrying, and rush headlong down the appointed path.
Toward what? Toward the unknown! We walk, and events pass by us or we pass by them; the days try us and we try them... Here we grapple with those who grapple, and we clamor and resound with life along with the clamorous and the resounding. So we give to many things more of our souls' longing than they deserve, and we leave shreds of those souls upon a mirage. Here, on this turning planet, lie tatters of souls lost in vain."
How can I read this book without offering the most beautiful and sincere praise for these sweet chapters, which she pictured so splendidly, and in which the reader finds so much delight and pleasure?
Indeed, how can I set this book down without marveling greatly at the splendid, concise phrases with which she introduces her stories, in which she pictured life most skillfully. She introduces the story "Hajja Hanifa" with the words: "Few are those who give and do not take." In this story she drew a picture of the life of proud souls who will not carry on their shoulders the debt of a favor, nor accept to be the creature of anyone's kindness and charity.
In her story "Adele" she tells us the life of a poor, ignorant servant girl who endured hard living and toiled among the toilers. Fortune smiled on her: she traveled to America to marry a rich man. Not ten years pass before she returns to her homeland, Lebanon, enthroned upon prestige, splendor, and wealth. High society then speaks of her as a genius of the age and one of its greatest writers — and more than that, the mother of benefactors.
Such talk, laden with exaggeration, is what travels from mouth
to ear when fortune smiles upon a person — and the reverse likewise.
In her story "The Orphan Girl" Salwa analyzes for us the soul of that orphan — fatherless — whose mother turned harsh toward her after taking a new husband, and denied her love, affection, and tenderness once she was blessed with a baby girl by this new husband.
Salwa enters the child's life by the main door, saying: "He errs who supposes that the child does not perceive or notice what grown-ups perceive. On the contrary, children are often more sensitive, and by their nature go deeper into the unknown regions of passing events, than grown-ups."
We see that Salwa wrote of nothing but life, and wove the events of her stories from nothing but people's reality. In "The Victim" she describes for us the story of that wayward young man who abandoned every good ideal and lived pampered, the only boy among his sisters, with no obstacle standing in the way of his whims and caprices. Father, mother, and sisters obeyed him from his earliest years until he reached young manhood, until he came to believe that all other people were beneath him, that everything must be sacrificed for his ends, and that he was created to dominate, to enjoy, and to possess; duty and selflessness meant nothing to him — rather everyone must prefer him and give him what he wanted. As a result of this bad upbringing, this pampered youth brought down a poor girl who became his victim, and hers was the evil fate.
As for her articles, they brim with wisdom, pulse with life, and treat the problems of social life. Whoever leafs through the issues of The Woman's Voice will find them filled with what Salwa the writer published — articles
of every kind, religious, literary, and social.
On the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet, God's prayers and peace be upon him, she wrote an article in December 1954 entitled "A Memory Ever Renewed," in which she says:
"O Birthday of the Prophet: you are the throb in the heart of life, restoring the gush of light in the deserts of consciences, among their barren grains of sand, far from the springs of generosity, love, justice, and equality.
"O Birthday of the Prophet: you are the quiver of the lips that move in prayer to God Almighty, asking mercy for infant humanity, that it may be able to crawl along its long path. And what is prayer but sincerity, selflessness, altruism, and an answer to the call of absolute good? Faith has never joined with hatred, nor selflessness with greed, nor continence with egoism; and the Prophet was sent only as a mercy from God and a guidance for mankind to the truth — to righteousness, cooperation, and charity."
On the coming of the blessed month of Ramadan, she published an article in the June 1954 issue entitled "The Inspiration of the Fast," saying:
"Ramadan — had people grasped its meaning, they would not fast it as they do; and had people drawn on its inspiration, they would not starve their bellies while their souls are glutted with vanities and their hearts filled with greed. Ramadan is a month for denying the self and giving to others, for devotion, for good, for help, service, and charity."
In that same June issue of 1954 she has a story on the life of Florence Nightingale, in which she says: "The likes of Florence will remain for