Kahlil Gibran Collective

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Gabriela Mistral, On Kahlil Gibran [Manuscript, c. 1930], Biblioteca Nacional de Chile [National Library of Chile].

It is a 21-page long copybook ('Cuaderno') handwritten in pencil by Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner in Literature Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) completely dedicated to Kahlil Gilbran [sic] which is currently kept safe in the archives of the National Library of Chile.

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Siegfried Sassoon on Kahlil Gibran, Journal, 10 Feb. 1920 (manuscript)
Siegfried Sassoon on Kahlil Gibran, Journal, 10 Feb. 1920 (manuscript)
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Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967), well known as a highly decorated English soldier and writer, was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His verse, that described the horrors of the trenches and satirized the patriotic spirit, greatly influenced Wilfred Owen )1893-1918(, who was the most famous poet- soldier of English literature and to whom Sassoon was mentor. 
On 28 January 1920, Sassoon arrived in New York for a lecture tour and Gibran, eager to draw him for his ”Temple of Art,“ got an appointment with him on 10 February. On that cold and snowy Tuesday, the two lunched together and Sassoon accepted to sit for a portrait. After coming back to the Seville Hotel, at 88 Madison Avenue, Sassoon wrote down in his notebook: 
”Tues. 10th - Dreary morning of thawing snow. Lunched with Kahlil Gibran, a little Syrian artist & poet; he did a drawing of me. He has done Masefield & Yeats with success, & showed me Rodin & Debussy, which looked all right. He seems a very nice creature. Nothing commercial about his point of view. (Tuesday, 10 Feb. 1920)“ 
Thanks to this unique document it is now possible to attribute an identity to a portrait hitherto left unnamed amongst others kept safe by the Gibran National Committee, Beirut, Lebanon. 
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- Physical Location: Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives 
- Classmark: MS Add.9852/1/14 
- Title: Journal, 21 Jan. 1920-22 Apr. 1920, p. 18

 

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The Way Seemed Long and Rough (Unpublished Manuscript), Josephine Preston Peabody papers
The Way Seemed Long and Rough (Unpublished Manuscript), Josephine Preston Peabody papers
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Harvard University - Houghton Library / Peabody, Josephine Preston, 1874-1922. Josephine Preston Peabody papers, 1896-1924. MS Am 1990 (89). Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
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Today Even As Yesterday - Unpublished Manuscript (Barbara Young Collection)

Today Even As Yesterday - Unpublished Manuscript (Barbara Young Collection)

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[Today Even As Yesterday] Today, the sun is in the sky Even as yesterday And the birds sing ceaselessly in the forest Yet lightless is my day and songless. Even as yesterday The wind dances upon the hills And the bay trees and the lilies Melt tenderly into space Yet breathless is my day and scentless. Today, my heart throbs Even as yesterday Yet here it lies in a coffin as dead. The hours beat the muffled drums And memory, half dumb, Speaks the funeral oration. And regret is digging the grave. O love, you who walk the earth in search of life Lay your hand again upon my heart And say it is not dead. Disperse these mourners And let me rise again To walk with you Even as yesterday.

In 1925 the poet Barbara Young (pseudonym of Henrietta Breckenridge Boughton) became Gibran’s secretary. She remained with Gibran for the rest of his life and played a major role in events after his death.