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June 12, 2016
Arabs could be swung on an idea as on a cord; for the unpledged allegiance of their minds made them obedient servants.
They were incorrigibly children of the idea, feckless and colour-blind, to whom body and spirit were for ever and inevitably opposed.Their mind was strange and dark, full of depressions and exaltations, lacking in rule, but with more of ardour and more fertile in belief than any other in the world. They were a people of starts, for whom the abstract was the strongest motive, the process of infinite courage and variety, and the end nothing. They were as unstable as water, and like water would perhaps finally prevail. Since the dawn of life, in successive waves they had been dashing themselves against the coasts of flesh. Each wave was broken, but, like the sea, wore away ever so little of the granite on which it failed, and some day, ages yet, might roll unchecked over the place where the material world had been, and God would move upon the face of those waters. One such wave (and not the least) I raised and rolled before the breath of an idea, till it reached its crest, and toppled over and fell at Damascus. The wash of that wave, thrown back by the resistance of vested things, will provide the matter of the following wave, when in fullness of time the sea shall be raised once more. Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Posted by gerardvanderleun at June 12, 2016 10:49 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.