Every time Gibran published a book, he sent a copy to May for criticism. When The Cortege or Procession, and The Madman were published, May reviewed them in Al-Hilal, a magazine in Egypt, and wrote Gibran a special letter in which she discussed the above books. Gibran answered her and thanked her for the criticism, praising her cleverness, her vast knowledge, and her frankness. At the same time he tried to acquit himself of being in agreement with Nietzsche and to deny some ideas he wrote on passion in The Madman.

TO MAY ZIADEH

Dear May,

… All in all the madman is not I. The passion which I sought to bring out through the lips of a personage I had created does not represent my own feelings. The language that I found expressive of the desires of this madman is different from the language that I use when I sit down to converse with a friend whom I love and respect. If you really want to discover my reality through my writings, why don’t you refer to the youth in the field and the soothing tune of his flute instead of the madman and his ugly cries? You will realize that the madman is no more than a link in a long chain made of metal. I do not deny that the madman was an unpolished link of rough iron, but this does not mean that the whole chain is rough. For every soul there is a season, May. The soul’s winter is not like her spring, and her summer is not like her autumn.…

Then Gibran went on discussing his book Tears and Laughter whose dialogue May had criticized and enquired of its author what prompted him to write such a childish work, to which Gibran bravely answered:

… Now let us discuss Tears And Laughter for a moment. I am not afraid to tell you that this came out before the World War. At that time I sent you a copy and never heard from you whether you received it or not. The articles in Tears And Laughter were the first ones that I wrote in series and published them in Almuhager sixteen years ago. Nasseeb Arida (may Allah forgive him) was the one who collected these articles, to which he added two more which I wrote in Paris, and published them in one book. During my childhood and the days of my youth, before the writings of Tears And Laughter, I wrote enough prose and poetry to fill many volumes, but I did not, and shall not, commit the crime of having them published.

GIBRAN