Visiting a Foreign Country
If you were planning to move to a foreign country
and thought you might never return,
would not it then be prudent to acclimate yourself
to any custom they might have
for in heaven what can increase your soul's
expanse is all that is ever served.
During the summer months, when her teaching job let out, Mary Haskell would travel out west. Usually she ventured to California, equally enjoying passing through the mountains of the Midwest until she reached her destination in a secluded wilderness part of California. In her July 19, 1014 letter she writes: "I have found a treasure for you - a tiny Indian arrowhead - what I have wished for you every year in the Sierra, but never saw before. I love it so much - I climbed the rocks to get this for you. It grows only in certain limits and where it can climb a mountainside. Like you, beloved Kahlil."
His reply, dated July 22, 1914, reads: "Your letter is a wonderful message, beloved Mary. It thrills my heart - and makes me see the stupidity of any other way of living. It is a mighty thing to go with love to those regions beyond these days and these nights. But how much more wonderful it is, beloved Mary, to know you as I do. You have freed my life."
Gibran's reference to "the stupidity of any other way of living" means that life lacks so much without travel and adventure. He acknowledges it is good for both the body and the soul to experience life in forms newly happened upon. So travel, explore, adventure, for "what can increase you soul's expanse is all that is ever served".
If you were planning to move to a foreign country
and thought you might never return,
would not it then be prudent to acclimate yourself
to any custom they might have
for in heaven what can increase your soul's
expanse is all that is ever served.
During the summer months, when her teaching job let out, Mary Haskell would travel out west. Usually she ventured to California, equally enjoying passing through the mountains of the Midwest until she reached her destination in a secluded wilderness part of California. In her July 19, 1014 letter she writes: "I have found a treasure for you - a tiny Indian arrowhead - what I have wished for you every year in the Sierra, but never saw before. I love it so much - I climbed the rocks to get this for you. It grows only in certain limits and where it can climb a mountainside. Like you, beloved Kahlil."
His reply, dated July 22, 1914, reads: "Your letter is a wonderful message, beloved Mary. It thrills my heart - and makes me see the stupidity of any other way of living. It is a mighty thing to go with love to those regions beyond these days and these nights. But how much more wonderful it is, beloved Mary, to know you as I do. You have freed my life."
Gibran's reference to "the stupidity of any other way of living" means that life lacks so much without travel and adventure. He acknowledges it is good for both the body and the soul to experience life in forms newly happened upon. So travel, explore, adventure, for "what can increase you soul's expanse is all that is ever served".
Sierra Mountains
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