"The Prophet
How can I answer your words about the book ""The Prophet""? What can I say to you?
This book is but a small part of the vastness I have seen and continue to see every day in the silent hearts of people, and in their souls yearning for expression. No one on earth has ever been able to create anything of his own, as a single individual separate from all others. And none among us today is capable of more than recording what people say to him without their knowledge.
But ""The Prophet,"" my dear, is the first letter of a word. . . I once imagined that this word belonged to me, was within me, and was from me. Therefore, I could not spell its first letter, and my inability was the cause of my illness, indeed, the cause of pain and anguish in my soul. . . Then God willed and opened my eyes, and I saw the light. . . Then God willed and opened my ears, and I heard people pronounce this first letter. God willed and opened my lips, and I repeated the pronunciation of the letter: I repeated it with joy and delight because I knew for the first time that people are everything, and that I, in my separate self, am nothing. And you know better than anyone the freedom, comfort, and peace that came with it. You know better than anyone the feeling of someone who suddenly finds themselves outside the confines of their limited self.
And you, May, my little one who is so big, are helping me now to hear the second letter, and you will help me pronounce it, and you will always be with me.
Come closer, Mary, come closer, for in my heart is a white flower I want to place on your brow. How sweet is love when it stands trembling and shy before itself.
May God bless you. May God protect my beloved little one, and may God fill her heart with the songs of his angels.
Gibran
December 3, 1922
This is the letter that Gibran sent to May Ziadeh, telling her about his book, The Prophet."
