!883-1930...why are the greats living such short lives...Or is it that their mission is complete and thus they depart?

Kahlil Gibran...the Austrian post said of his greatest book, "The Prophet" that he held onto it for four years before submitting it to his publisher. He said he wanted to be sure, really sure that every word was right. This man, whose literary power is understood to have come from some deep "reservoir of spiritual life," is yet to be surpassed. Each word is truly a masterpiece...each line a gift...and each chapter a book onto itself.

I am personally brought to tears when I read his work. It touches the heart so profoundly; even making the most ignorant and selfish person fall to their knees.

"Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?"

"Too many fragments of the spirit have I scatterd in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a bruden and an ache."

"It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands."

"Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst."