Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran

by Kahlil Gibran

  For heaven’s sake, my heart, if someone asks,

  “What has happened?” do not answer.

  If you are asked, “Who is she?”

  Say she is in love with another.

  And pretend that it is of no consequence.

  For heaven’s sake, my love, conceal your passion; your sickness is also your medicine because love to the soul is as wine in a glass—what you see is liquid, what is hidden is its spirit.

  For heaven’s sake, my heart, conceal your troubles; then, should the seas roar and the skies fall, you will be safe.

  THE ROBIN

  by Gibran

  O Robin, sing! for the secret of eternity is in song.

  I wish I were as you, free from prisons and chains.

  I wish I were as you; a soul flying over the valleys,

  Sipping the light as wine is sipped from ethereal cups.

  I wish I were as you, innocent, contented and happy,

  Ignoring the future and forgetting the past.

  I wish I were as you in beauty, grace and elegance

  With the wind spreading my wings for adornment by the dew.

  I wish I were as you, a thought floating above the land

  Pouring out my songs between the forest and the sky.

  O Robin, sing! and disperse my anxiety.

  I listen to the voice within your voice that whispers in my inner ear.

  THE GREAT SEA

  by Gibran

  Yesterday, the far and the near yesterday, my soul and I walked to the Great Sea to wash from ourselves, in its waters, the dust and dirt of the earth. Arriving at the shore, we searched for a secluded place far from the sight of others.

  As we walked, we saw a man sitting upon a gray rock, in his hand a bag of salt from which he took one handful at a time and threw it into the sea.

  My soul said, “This man believes in bad omens;

  He sees nothing of life except its shadows.

  No beliver in bad omens should see our naked bodies.

  Let us leave; we can do no bathing here.”

  We left that spot and moved on to a bay.

  There we saw a man standing on a white rock, and in his hand was a vase ornamented with precious stones.

  From the vase he was taking cubes of sugar and throwing them into the sea.

  My soul said, “This man believes in good omens, and he expects to happen things which never happen.

  Beware, for neither should we let him see our naked selves.’

  We walked on until we came to a man standing by the shore,

  picking up dead fish and throwing them

  back into the sea.

  My soul said, “This man is compassionate, trying to bring back life to those already dead. Let us keep away from him.”

  We continued on until we saw a man tracing his own shadow on the sand.

  The waves rolled across his sketches and erased them, but he continued to retrace his work.

  My soul said, “He is a mystic, creating images to worship in his own imagination.

  Let us leave him alone also.”

  We walked on again until we saw a man

  in a quiet bay skimming the foam off the waves

  and putting them into an agate jar.

  My soul said, “He is visionary like one who tries to weave a garment from spider threads. He is not worthy of seeing our naked bodies.”

  We moved ahead until suddenly we heard a voice calling, “This is the sea! This is the frightful sea!” We looked for the source of the voice, and we found a man with his back turned to the sea. In his hand he held a shell over his ear, listening to its murmur.

  My soul said, “He is a materialist, who closes his eyes to those things in the universe which he cannot understand and occupies himself with trifles.”

  My soul was saddened, and in a bitter voice said:

  “Let us leave these shores. There is no secluded place here for us to bathe. I will not comb my hair in this wind, nor will I open my bosom in this open space, nor will I undress and stand naked in this bright light.”

  My soul and I then left this great sea in search of a greater sea.

  SEVEN REPRIMANDS

  by Gibran

  I reprimanded my soul seven times!

  The first time: when I attempted to exalt myself by exploiting the weak.

  The second time: when I feigned a limp before those who were crippled.

  The third time: when, given a choice, I elected the easy rather than the difficult.

  The fourth time: when I made a mistake I consoled myself with the mistakes of others.

  The fifth time: when I was docile because of fear and then claimed to be strong in patience.

  The sixth time: when I held my garments upraised to avoid the mud of Life.

  The seventh time: when I stood in hymnal to God and considered the singing a virtue.

  DURING A YEAR NOT REGISTERED IN HISTORY

  by Gibran

  … In that moment appeared from behind the willow trees a beautiful girl with hair that touched the ground. She stood beside the sleeping youth and touched his tender brow with her silken soft hand.

  He looked at her through sleepy eyes as though awakened by the rays of the sun.

  When he realized the Emir’s daughter was standing beside him he fell upon his knees as Moses had done when he saw the burning bush.

  He attempted to speak. Words failed him but his tearful eyes supplanted his tongue.

  The young girl embraced him, kissed his lips; then she kissed his eyes, drying his copious tears and lips with her kisses.

  In a voice softer than the tone of a reed, she said: “I saw you, sweetheart, in my dreams; I looked upon your face in my loneliness. You are the lost consort of my soul and the other better half from which I was separated when I was ordered to come into this world.”

  “I came here secretly to join you, sweetheart. Do not fear; you are now in my arms. I left the glory which surrounds my father and came to follow you to the end of the world, and to drink with you the cup of life and death.”

  “Come, sweetheart, let us go into the wilderness, away from civilization.”

  And the lovers walked into the forest, into the darkness of the night, fearing neither an Emir nor the phantoms of the darkness.

  THE WOMEN IN THE LIFE OF GIBRAN

  Gibran’s Mother, Kamila

  GIBRAN recognized the influence of women in his life. He once wrote: “I am indebted for all that I call ‘I’ to women ever since I was an infant. Women opened windows of my eyes and the doors of my spirit. Had it not been for the woman-mother, the woman-sister and the woman-friend, I would have been sleeping among those who disturb the serenity of the world with their snores.”

  There were many women in Gibran’s life, his biographers agree.

  Gibran’s mother was especially important in his life because of circumstances which directed her own life. After she married, she and her husband migrated to Brazil, where he took sick and died, leaving her with her infant son, Peter. The mother returned with her son to the home of her father, Stephen Rahmy, a Maronite priest.

  The man who was to become Gibran’s father heard her singing one day in her father’s garden, fell in love with her and soon they were married.

  Kahlil Gibran was born December 6,1883, followed by two sisters, Mariana and Sultana. Their mother taught them music, Arabic and French. As they grew older a tutor was brought into the home to teach them English.

  Later they were sent to city schools. They were often taken to church, where their grandfather, a capable priest, served Mass and preached.

  In the Maronite church, in certain ceremonies, the whole congregation participates, chanting in Syriac, the language Christ spoke. The effect of the Maronite ceremonies remained with Gibran the rest of his life; a letter he wrote in later years acknowledged his debt to the church.

  The religious bent of Gibran’s mother, her beautiful voice in church and the religious atmosphere of the family m
olded Gibran’s character. This effect is apparent in Gibran’s book, Jesus, the Son of Man.

  As Gibran reached the age of twelve, his half-brother, Peter, reached the age of eighteen.

  Peter was thus ready to go out on his own and, like all the Lebanese (Phoenicians) who have used the seas as their highways for thousands of years, set his heart on America.

  Gibran’s mother, unwilling to have her children separate, brought Peter, Kahlil and the two girls to Boston. Kahlil’s father protested, for he owned large properties, collected taxes for the government, and in season did business as a cattle dealer. However, the fables from America—that the streets were paved with gold and the prospect of immediate riches—overwhelmed Peter, and he decided to bring the family to America, Kahlil’s blond, blue-eyed father remaining in Lebanon.

  Some of Gibran’s biographers did not know that a cattle dealer in the Middle East is actually a sheep dealer, because sheep are imported to Lebanon, from Syria, from Iraq and sometimes even from Turkey. Actually, transporting sheep from Turkey without benefit of trucks, with few rail facilities, with little feed and water, is harder and more speculative than cattle droving in the United States. Kahlil’s biographers, in their confusion, wrote that his father was a shepherd.

  In Boston, Peter opened a grocery store, the other children being sent to school. At the age of fourteen Kahlil decided to go back to Lebanon to complete his education in Arabic. His mother, realizing the talent and ambition of her son, consented to have him return to Beirut to enter the College of Al Kikmat.

  Gibran remained in the college five years, spending the summers near the cedars and traveling with his father through the Middle East. After his five years were over, Gibran visited Greece, Italy and Spain on his way to Paris to study art (1901–1903).

  Gibran was called back to the States because his younger sister, Sultana, had died and his mother was very sick. His mother remained bedridden nearly fifteen months before she died. During this time his halfbrother Peter also died. It was the greatest shock in Gibran’s life. The family was very close and its members had made great sacrifice to educate him. Mariana miraculously survived the tuberculosis which decimated Kahlil’s family. Gibran’s feelings toward his mother are more eloquently expressed by his own words from The Broken Wings:

  “Mother is everything in this life; she is consolation in time of sorrowing and hope in time of grieving and power in moments of weakness. She is the fountainhead of compassion, forbearance and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a bosom upon which he can rest his head, the hand that blesses, and eyes which watch over him.”

  Micheline

  One biographer has stated that Gibran met, in Boston, a beautiful and vivacious girl named Emilie Michel, nicknamed Micheline. He also stated that Micheline followed Gibran to Paris, that she asked him to marry her and when he refused she left Gibran’s apartment and vanished forever. Some biographers accepted this story; others did not mention the girl by name. Offered as proof by some who mentioned Micheline were two items: first, that Gibran had painted her before he left for Paris; second, the dedication of one of his books to Micheline.

  I made a special effort to determine the existence of this beautiful girl. I visited the Museum of Gibran in Lebanon, where I asked the curator to direct me to the painting of Micheline. Pointing to one of the paintings on the wall he said, “This is what is considered to be the painting of Micheline.”

  This painting has no identifying marks whatsoever. It is not even signed by Gibran. But then only a few of his paintings are signed. I found no facts to show that this was the painting of Micheline; I found no correspondence between Gibran and Micheline.

  The reprints of Gibran’s Arabic books, as stated earlier, lack information as to the date of first publication. They also lack dedications. After a long search I obtained copies of the earlier editions which contain dedications; I found that Micheline was not mentioned.

  The dedication I found read thus:

  “To the soul that embraced my soul, to the heart that poured its secrets into my own heart, to the hand that kindled the flame of my emotions, I dedicate this book.”

  In Paris Gibran lived and worked with a close friend, Joseph Hoyek, who wrote a book about their two years together. The two young men did not live in the same apartment; however, they met daily and often shared the cost of a model for the sake of saving money. Hoyek wrote about the girls they met, the restaurants in which they ate. He named Olga, a Russian girl, another named Rosina, and an Italian girl who was the most beautiful model they hired, but Hoyek made no mention of Micheline.

  Therefore, until further evidence is available, I withhold my decision that Micheline ever existed.

  Mary Haskell or Mary Khoury?

  In 1904 Gibran borrowed twenty dollars and arranged for an exhibition of his paintings. One of those who visited that exhibit was a Miss Mary E. Haskell, who became his friend. Later, she paid his way to Paris to further his art studies. One biographer said that Gibran thereafter asked her to check each of his manuscripts before he submitted it to his publisher.

  Gibran’s novel The Broken Wings was dedicated to M. E. H. However, the administrator of Gibran’s estate insists that the woman who helped Gibran financially was a wealthy woman named Mary Khoury. The executor of the estate was the personal physician of Mary Khoury, and had seen in her apartment several of Gibran’s paintings and statues on which Gibran had written in Arabic: “Do not blame a person for drinking lest he is trying to forget something more serious than drinking.” The doctor further reports that she, Mary Khoury, agreed to have her letters from Gibran published. He also claims those letters were given to a friend for editing, and that both the friend and Mary Khoury have since died. Thus the letters and paintings fell into unknown hands.

  According to Mary Khoury, Gibran spent many evenings, in the later days of his life, at her apartment.

  The existence of letters from Gibran to Mary Khoury was verified independently by a reliable Lebanese reporter who explained that he had read some of them and that Mary Khoury had promised to have letters released after they were edited. When I asked the newsman if the letters were business or love letters, he emphasized that they were love letters.

  Nevertheless, the mystery remains about the benefactress in Kahlil Gibran’s life: Was she Mary Haskell or Mary Khoury—or both?

  Barbara Young

  Barbara Young knew Gibran the last seven years of his life, during which time she became the first of his disciples to shout his praise in a biography, The Man From Lebanon.

  “If he, Gibran, had never written a poem or painted a picture, his signature upon the page of eternal record would still be inerasable. The power of his individual consciousness has penetrated the consciousness of the age, and the indwelling of his spirit is timeless and deathless. This is Gibran,” wrote Barbara Young.

  In 1923 Barbara heard a reading from The Prophet.

  She wrote to Gibran expressing her admiration. She received “his gracious invitation to come to this studio ‘to talk about poetry’ and to see the pictures.”

  “So I went,” she wrote, “to the old West Tenth Street building, climbed four flights of stairs and found him there, smiling, welcoming me as though we were old friends indeed.”

  Barbara was taller than Gibran, of light complexion, beautifully built. Her family came from Bideford, in Devon, England. By profession, she was an English teacher, she operated a book store, and she lectured about Gibran the rest of her life after that first climb of the four flights of stairs. After Gibran’s death, she assembled and put together the chapters of his unfinished book, Garden of the Prophet, and arranged for its publication.

  Barbara Young and other biographers have described Gibran as being slender, of medium height, five feet-four inches, as having large, sleepy, brown eyes fringed by long lashes, chestnut hair, and a generous mustache framing full lips. His body was strong and he possessed a powerful grip. In some of his letters he mentioned tha
t the beating of his heart was becoming normal again.

  Barbara Young was with Gibran at the hospital when he passed away. Soon afterward she packed the precious paintings and effects left in the studio where Gibran had lived for eighteen years, and sent them to his home town of Bcherri in Lebanon.

  During her speaking tours Barbara exhibited more than sixty paintings of Gibran’s work. What became of this collection or any unfinished work, papers or letters she may have had depends on the generosity of those who bought, received or inherited these objects. Until they come forward, there will never be a complete biography of Gibran, particularly that part dealing with Barbara Young.

  How close a relationship existed during these seven years can be answered, in part, by excerpts from Barbara’s own writing.

  Barbara never lived with Gibran. She kept her own apartment in the city of New York.

  One Sunday, Barbara wrote, accepting an invitation from Gibran, she went to the studio. Gibran was writing a poem; he was at his desk when she arrived. While composing Gibran usually paced the floor and then he would sit down to write a line or two.

  “I waited while he repeated his writing and his walking again and again. Then a thought came to me. The next time he walked I went and seated myself at his table and took up his pencil. When he turned he saw me sitting there.

  “‘You make the poem and I’ll write it,’ I said.”

  After much protest Gibran consented to try it. He was pleased with the experiment.

  “‘Well, you and I are two poets working together.’ He paused. Then after a silence, ‘We are friends,’ he said. I want nothing from you, and you want nothing from me. We share life.’”

  As they worked together and as she became more acquainted with his manner of thought and his work, she told him of her determination to write a book about him. Gibran was pleased and “it was from that time on that he talked often of his childhood, his mother and family, and some events in his life.”

  One day Gibran asked, “Suppose you were compelled to give up—to forget all the words you know except seven—what are the seven words that you would keep?”