Excerpt: "You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,--the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,--I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves." Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me." (The Madman) Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and philosopher. Regarded as a literary and political rebel, his romantic style was at the heart of the renaissance in modern Arabic literature. TABLE OF CONTENTS: • PROSE & POETRY • Spirits Rebellious • The Broken Wings • A Tear And A Smile • The Madman: His Parables And Poems • The Forerunner • Your Thought And Mine • History and the Nation • I Believe In You • My Countrymen • Al-nay; Or The Flute • Dead Are My People • You Have Your Lebanon And I Have My Lebanon • SKETCHES AND PAINTINGS • INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES