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

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 that 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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œâ€˜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.
    â€œâ€˜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?”
    â€œI named only five,” Barbara wrote. “God, Life, Love, Beauty, Earth … and asked Gibran what other words would he select and he answered, ‘The most important words to keep are: You and I … without these two there would need to be no others’ then Gibran selected the seven words: You, I, Give, God, Love, Beauty, Earth.”
    â€œGibran liked a frugal supper in the studio,” Barbara wrote, “particularly during a period of his life when he was entertained and being feasted. This one evening Gibran said that ‘in the East there is a custom of eating all from one huge vessel. Let us have our soup tonight in one bowl!’ So we did and Gibran humorously drew an imaginary line through the soup and said, ‘this is your half of the soup and this other is my half. See to it that we neither one trespass upon the soup of the other!’ Then laughter and a thorough enjoyment, each of his own half of the soup.”
    In another chapter Barbara wrote: “One evening when we were doing the book ‘Sea and Foam,’ I piled cushions on the floor and sat upon them instead of occupying my usual chair. Then I had a strange feeling of a familiarity about the gesture, and I said: ‘I feel as if I’ve sat like this besides you many times — but I really haven’t,’ and Gibran answered, ‘We have done