“In his introduction to Charles M. Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta, T. E. Lawrence attempted to describe the character of the desert Arabs that both he and Doughty had admired. “They are the least morbid of peoples,” Lawrence wrote, “who take the gift of life unquestioningly, as an axiom.”

“In his introduction to Charles M. Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta, T. E. Lawrence attempted to describe the character of the desert Arabs that both he and Doughty had admired. “They are the least morbid of peoples,” Lawrence wrote, “who take the gift of life unquestioningly, as an axiom.”

— David Berlinski