Gibran and Joseph Nahas ate their sandwiches in Battery Park watching a blind man read with his fingers. A few days later they went uptown to see how the pages were made — and Gibran came away wanting the same thing for readers of Arabic.
By Joseph Nahas · Edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem-Habib
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KAHLIL GIBRAN COLLECTIVE
By Joseph Nahas · Kahlil Gibran Collective · 2019 · kahlilgibran.com
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I
One day, instead of eating our lunch at the restaurant, Gibran and I prepared our own sandwiches and walked over to Battery Park. There we saw a blind man sitting on a bench, running his fingers over a white page covered with dots protruding through embossing. The man's lips moved as if he were whispering to himself as his fingers moved over the sheet. As we passed, Gibran remarked: "Let's sit on the adjoining bench, eat our sandwiches quietly while watching this man with 'seeing fingers'."
We sat eating, our eyes fixed on him, watching the expressions on his face — smiling now, frowning then — as his fingers moved deftly over one line after another, page after page. Soon the sandwiches were gone, and Gibran turned to me and whispered: "Believe me, the mind of this blind man is more perceptive than many normally visional persons whose eyes glare at the sun without blinking. Let us stop and have a few words with him before returning to work."
As we stood up, the blind man lifted his head and said: "Good afternoon, gentlemen. I trust that your lunch was satisfying. Am I wrong in thinking that one of you wishes to speak with me? You see, with the loss of my eyesight I was compensated with the blessing of oversensitivity in hearing. I heard you come by, sit on the adjoining bench — even heard you munch your sandwiches."
Gibran cleared his throat: "We tried to be as quiet as possible, being fascinated with witnessing the law of compensation at work. I, with my colleague, wish to compliment you on your amazing talent. Would you attribute some of it to extrasensory perception?" The blind man replied: "I really don't know if ESP in this case is a factor, but didn't you mention the law of compensation? I am more inclined to believe it to be a factor in my case. Don't you agree with me?" Gibran replied: "I most certainly do."
I then asked our blind friend what he was reading. "I am reading a magazine for the blind," he said, "issued by the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind, here in New York." I looked at my watch, saw that it was time to be at work, and caught Gibran's eye. Gibran said: "Sorry to deny ourselves the pleasurable privilege of visiting longer with you, but we must be back at work. We sincerely do hope to meet with you again." The blind man said: "I understand, I understand."
Back at Al-Mohajer, Gibran said: "Wouldn't it be interesting to see how that magazine for the blind operates?" I replied: "Why not plan on going there when time permits?"
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II
That time came a few days later. We consulted the phone book for the address and boarded the Ninth Avenue elevated to 53rd Street, then walked to our destination. The offices and production area of the Matilda Ziegler Magazine were on the second floor. As we entered, a comely young woman radiating smiles left her typewriter, walked up to us and said: "I am Bertie Anker. What can I do for you?"
I introduced Gibran, then myself, explaining that we both worked in a publishing house and that we had met a sightless man reading her magazine, which had aroused our curiosity. Gibran added: "We wanted to see the work of the humanitarian agency which put sight into the fingertips of those whose eyes were denied by nature or accident the blessing of vision."
Miss Anker introduced us to her sister, who was in charge of the office, and then to a Mr. Kehoe, operating an oversize typewriter. The machine used very thin brass plates instead of paper, and the keys carried the regular letters of the alphabet with a combination of dots beneath each. There was no ribbon: when a key is struck it makes the point indentation in the brass plate, so that words are embossed as you would type-print them on an ordinary sheet. Every brass plate is the same size as a magazine page. Once indented, the plates go to the production room for embossing.
Gibran remarked: "How wondrous is the law of compensation which works in diverse ways to offset some of the handicaps inflicted on the unfortunates… The cruel and greedy may be many, but the world will not be totally lost with the presence of people like these, dedicated to right the wrongs of circumstances and nature."
Miss Anker then pointed to a young woman using a regular typewriter: "This is Henrietta Weiss, sister of the great magician Harry Houdini, whose real name is Weiss, same as his sisters'." Miss Weiss looked up, blushed, and said, "Pleased to meet you." She seemed shy; her glasses were exceedingly thick, indicating limited eyesight. Gibran whispered: "The dimness of sight was brushed aside by this courageous soul. Mark you, while history gives credit and glory to so-called heroes distinguishing themselves in wars of destruction, it is heroines such as this girl that are the true workers in the fields of humanity. They courageously go about, in spite of their handicaps, providing their own sustenance, while helping others in so doing."
I asked whether it were permissible to see how the magazine is published, and Mr. Phillips, foreman of the production room, showed us around. The first step, he said, is to dampen the paper stock for embossing. The second is to attach the indented brass sheets to the drum of the cylinder press. The third is to feed the dampened sheets in as you would into any regular cylinder press. The fourth is to hang the embossed sheets on wires stretched along the bottom of three walls. The fifth is to light the gas burners in the oven, shut its doors securely, and let the sheets bake — a hardening process. The magazine, he explained, is printed in two systems: Braille, and the American Point System, a simplified form of it. Gibran told Phillips that while in Paris he had seen a number of blind people reading magazines similar to this one, but had never had the chance to see how they were produced.
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III
Re-entering the office on our way out, we met the manager, Mr. Walter G. Holmes, who introduced us to a Mr. Anthony Fiala, explorer on the staff of Roald Amundsen. Holmes was about Gibran's height, slender but wiry, with well-groomed moustaches — unlike Gibran's, which drooped. Fiala was tall, lithe and erect. We exchanged pleasantries and, as we were about to leave, Gibran addressed Holmes:
During my art study in Paris, I had occasions to visit the cathedral of Notre Dame and, were I of a materialistic thought and taste, I could have been fascinated with the material and artistic wealth it contained. But judged by spiritual and humanitarian standards of values, it is no better a temple to the Omniscient Creator than this unpretentious one of yours. There, they say, "It was erected for the glory of God"; here, your work is dedicated to His true glory, in exemplifying His love — His compassion.
Holmes was so pleased with the compliment that he shook Gibran's hand vigorously, again and again.
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IV
On the way back Gibran seemed deep in thought until we had almost finished the journey. Then he looked at me and said: "We must explore it." I asked, "Explore what?" He replied: "Such a help to blind readers in the Arabic language. What a blessing it would be for them to learn, and be able to read in Arabic, as the Matilda Ziegler Magazine offers in English." I replied that for all we knew such publications might already exist — but if not, it should not be an impossible task to convert the Arabic alphabet to a point system such as Braille.
We walked down to Battery Park, chose a bench, and continued. Gibran asked: "Am I wrong in saying that you once said you had worked on adapting the Arabic script alphabet for use on the Linotype?" "Not Linotype, but the Intertype," I replied. "What is the difference between the two?" I explained that both are typesetting machines; the Linotype was invented by Mergenthaler and came first to market. Mr. Soper, superintendent of the Intertype plant in Brooklyn Heights, had come to see me at the publishing house and asked if I would help adapt the Arabic alphabet for use with their machine, and I agreed.
Najeeb Diab, publisher of the Arabic newspaper Mir'at al-Gharb (Mirror of the West), whose offices were at 93 Washington Street, was kind enough to supply me with a full set of type to experiment with. When at last I thought my efforts crowned with success, we discovered that another man — Salim Sarkis of Cairo — had been working on a similar project, and had by a matter of days applied for letters of patent. The Intertype people were satisfied with the improvement over Sarkis's basic patent, and thanked me for my efforts with a remuneration cheque. Gibran commented: "It was a worthwhile effort — and you might supplement it by doing some research in the field of opening the blind eyes of Arabic readers by giving them a point reading system such as the Braille."
Soon after, we entered the First World War and parted company, except for two or three occasional meetings after that war ended; by then I was neck-deep in the more lucrative industrial field.
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Excerpt from Joseph Nahas, Seventy-Eight and Still Musing: Observations and Reflections. With Personal Reminiscences of Gibran as I Knew Him (Hicksville, New York: Exposition Press, 1974), pp. 42–47.
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