The Beduin Could Not Look For God

We Had Been Hopelessly Labouring To Plough Waste Lands; To Make Nationality Grow In A Place Full Of The Certainty Of God… Among The Tribes Our Creed Could Be Only Like The Desert Grass – A Beautiful Swift Seeming Of Spring; Which, After A Day’s Heat, Fell Dusty.

The Desert Was Held In A Crazed Communism By Which Nature And The Elements Were For The Free Use Of Every Known Friendly Person For His Own Purposes And No More.

An Opinion Can Be Argued With; A Conviction Is Best Shot. The Logical End Of A War Of Creeds Is The Final Destruction Of One, And Salammbo Is The Classical Text-book Instance.

It Seemed That Rebellion Must Have An Unassailable Base, Something Guarded Not Merely From Attack, But From The Fear Of It: Such A Base As We Had In The Red Sea Parts, The Desert, Or In The Minds Of The Men We Converted To Our Creed.

In Peace-armies Discipline Meant The Hunt, Not Of An Average But Of An Absolute; The Hundred Per Cent Standard In Which The Ninety-nine Were Played Down To The Level Of The Weakest Man On Parade.... The Deeper The Discipline, The Lower Was The Individual Excellence; Also The More Sure The Performance.