developers of a written language, first gave the impetus to man’s activity and courage and intelligence.
And this activity of the industry and will is not dead in man. It may be dead in us Syrians, but not in the Americans. In their strenuous spirit it rises uppermost. After all, I must love the Americans, for they are my Phoenician ancestors incarnate.
Ay, there is in the nature of things a mysterious recurrence which makes for a continuous, everlasting modernity. And I believe that the spirit which moved those brave sea-daring navigators of yore, is still working lustily, bravely, but alas, not joyously—bitterly, rather, selfishly, greedily—behind the steam engine, the electric motor, the plough, and in the clinic and the studio as in the Stock Exchange.
That spirit in its real essence, however, is as young, as puissant today as it was when the native of Byblus first struck out to explore the seas, to circumnavigate Africa, to discover even America!”