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This, they toldme, is the best: it has no taste. This creed of the desert
seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed inthought.
Inhis life he had air and
winds, sun and light, open spaces and a greatemptiness. The least morbid of
peoples, they had accepted the gift of Meunquestioningly, as axiomatic.
Delay
followed, as the Allies went to the Dardanelles, and not toAlexandretta. They
looked outside for help, and expected freedom tocome by entreaty, not by
sacrifice.
Or, after my model, he may imitate them so well that theyspuriously
imitate him back again.
This was the circulation which keptvigour in the
Semitic body.
Finally, Abdul Hamid took awaysome of the family to
Constantinople into honourable captivity.
With the coming of the Turks this
happiness became a dream. They were assertions, not arguments; so they required
aprophet to set them forth. They were a dogmatic people, despising doubt,our
modern crown of thorns. The Arab societies went underground, and changedfrom
liberal clubs into conspiracies.
Being a manufactured people, their name had
been changing in senseslowly year by year. The outbreak of war made trouble in
the Hejaz.
Jemal would send for Feisal and take him to the hanging of his
Syrianfriends.
They were a dogmatic people, despising doubt,our modern crown of
thorns. CHAPTER IIA first difficulty of the Arab movement was to say who the
Arabs were.
This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed
inthought. Nor then did the pressure cease: the inexorable trend
northwardcontinued.
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