Free Mirrors of the Soul by Joseph Sheban Joseph Sheban Kahlil Gibran

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 half-brother 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 :
    â€œMother 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 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