Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran (64 page)

Remember me to your father, whom I admire and respect, and give my regards to your respected mother—that dear mother who gave the Arabic-speaking world a powerful figure, and bestowed upon Lebanon a brillant torch, and enriched Gibran with a very dear and beloved brother. Kindly spread my salaam among your brothers, neighbors and admirers like the frolicsome breeze of Lebanon spreads its blossoms upon the apple trees in the month of Nisan.

Miriana greets you from behind the ocean and wishes you the best of health. My relative Melhem and his daughter Zahieh asked me to send you their regards. Everybody misses you and longs to see you, oh beloved brother of

G
IBRAN

*
This book was never finished or published.

TO NAKHLI GIBRAN

Paris, France,

Sept. 27, 1910

My Beloved Brother Nakhli:

Do you recall those interesting tales we used to hear during the cold rainy days while sitting around the hearth with the snow falling outside and the wind blowing between the dwellings? Do you still remember the story about the gorgeous garden with beautiful trees bearing delicious fruits? Do you also remember the end of the story which tells how those bewitched trees turned into young men whom destiny had brought into the garden? I am sure you remember all these things even without knowing that Gibran is like those bewitched young men tied with unseen chains and ruled by invisible power.

I am, my dear, Nakhli, a bewitched tree, but Sid Aladin has not yet come from behind the Seven Seas to unshackle me and loosen the magic ties and make me free and independent.

On the 14th day of the coming month I shall leave Paris, but now I am busy arranging my work and planning for the future. I am like a spinning wheel turning day and night. God only knows how busy I am. Thus heaven directs my life, and thus destiny rotates me around a certain point from which I cannot get away.

Your letter just reached me this morning, and since then I have been thinking and thinking, but I do not know what to do. Do you believe that you can help me with your thoughts and affections? Can you look into the depth of my heart and understand the misery which God has placed in it? All I ask of you is to feel with me and have faith and believe me when I tell you that I am a prisoner of time and circumstances. I am not lamenting my luck because I prefer to be like I am, and I refuse to exchange my plight for another one because I have chosen the literary life while being aware of all the obstacles and pains surrounding it.

Just think, my dear Nakhli, and ponder upon Gibran's life, for it reveals to you a sort of struggle and strife. It is a chain of connected links of misery and distress. I can say these things to you because I am very patient and glad of the existence of hardships in my life, for I hope to overcome all these difficulties. Had it not been for the presence of calamities, work and struggle would not have existed, and life would have been cold, barren and boresome.

G
IBRAN

The ties of friendship were developed between Kahlil Gibran and the Lebanese artist, Yousif Howayek while they were studying art in Paris. Gibran was Howayek's inseparable friend who accompanied him to the opera, theatres, museums, galleries and other places of interest. Howayek was a great admirer of Gibran, and as a token of his admiration for the Prophet of Lebanon he worked several months on a beautiful oil portrait of Gibran and presented it to him.

TO YOUSIF HOWAYEK

Boston, 1911

Although this city is full of friends and acquaintances, I feel as if I had been exiled into a distant land where life is as cold as ice and as gray as ashes and as silent as the Sphynx.

My sister is close by me, and the loving kinfolks are around me everywhere I go, and the people visit us every day and every night, but I am not happy. My work is progressing rapidly, my thoughts are calm, and I am enjoying perfect health, but I still lack happiness. My soul is hungry and thirsty for some sort of nourishment, but I don't know where to find it. The soul is a heavenly flower that cannot live in the shade, but the thorns can live everywhere.

This is the life of the oriental people who are afflicted with the disease of fine arts. This is the life of the children of Apolon who are exiled into this foreign land, whose work is strange, whose walk is slow, and whose laughter is cry.

How are you, Yousif? Are you happy among the human ghosts you witness every day on both sides of the road?

G
IBRAN

In the preface of his Arabic book
May and Gibran,
Dr. Jamil Jabre wrote: “It is difficult to imagine a man and a woman falling in love without having known or met one another except by correspondence. But artists have their own unusual way of life which they themselves can only understand. This was the case of the great Lebanese woman writer, May Ziadeh and Kahlil Gibran.

“The literary and love relationship between Kahlil Gibran and May Ziadeh was not a myth or presumption, but a proven fact which was revealed to the public through some letters published by May Ziadeh after Gibran's death.”

When
The Broken Wings
made its first appearance in Arabic, Gibran presented May Ziadeh with a copy of his novel and asked her to criticize it. Complying with his request, she wrote him the following letter:

FROM MAY ZIADEH

Cairo, Egypt,

May 12, 1912

… I do not agree with you on the subject of marriage, Gibran. I respect your thoughts, and I revere your ideas, for I know that you are honest and sincere in the defense of your principles that aim at a noble purpose. I am in full accord with you on the fundamental principle that advocates the freedom of woman. The woman should be free, like the man, to choose her own spouse guided not by the advice and aid of neighbors and acquaintances, but by her own personal inclinations. After choosing her life partner, a woman must bind herself completely to the duties of that partnership upon which she has embarked. You refer to these as heavy chains fabricated by the ages. Yes, I agree with you and I say that these
are
heavy chains; but remember that these chains were made by nature who made the woman what she is today. Though man's mind has reached the point of breaking the chains of customs and traditions, it has not yet reached the point of breaking the natural chains because the law of nature is above all laws. Why can't a married woman meet secretly with the man she loves? Because by thus doing she will be betraying her husband and disgracing the name she has willingly accepted, and will be lowering herself in the eyes of the society of which she is a member.

At the time of marriage the woman promises to be faithful, and spiritual faithfulness is as important as physical faithfulness. At the time of matrimony she also declares and guarantees the happiness and well-being of her husband; and when she meets secretly with another man, she is already guilty of betraying society, family and duty. You may counter with, “Duty is a vague word that is hard to define in many circumstances.” In a case like this we need to know “what is a family” in order to be able to ascertain the duties of its members. The roll which the woman plays in the family is the most difficult, the most humble, and the most bitter.

I myself feel the pangs of the strings that tie the woman down—those fine silky strings are like those of a spider's web, but they are as strong as golden wires. Suppose we let Selma Karamy,
*
the heroine of your novel, and every woman that resembles her in affections and intelligence, meet secretly with an honest man of noble character; would not this condone any woman's selecting for herself a friend, other than her husband, to meet with secretly? This would not work, even if the purpose of their secret meeting was to pray together before the shrine of the Crucified.

M
AY

*
The beautiful girl of Beirut in Gibran's
The Broken Wings.

Sarkis Effandi, one of Gibran's best friends, was considered a scholar among the intelligentsia of Lebanon. He owned a publishing house and a daily Arabic newspaper called
Lisan-Ul-Hal.
In the year 1912 the Arab League of Progress, an organization composed of many literary figures joined together for the purpose of promoting Arab unity and culture, decided to honor the great Lebanese poet Khalil Effandi Mutran, who a few years later became the poet laureate of Egypt and Syria.