Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 192
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[Page 192]
who can do anything, however little, should be made to do that little usefully." (Ruskin's Fors Clavigera. Applicable as a dictum at the present moment with full force to every unit of the British race. How it is true ever that
"Those who work faithfully, will put themselves will put themselves in possession of a glorious and enlarging happiness". (R's [Ruskin's] Crown of Wild Olives)
Father McAuliffe told me the other day that The Hon John Meagher is back in Australia. Should you meet him please convey from me a message to him with my best regards.
When riding this morning, before breakfast, across the plateau of the Libyian dessert, there were in every wady, (valley), indications of the springtime, and of the showers which fell a few days and nights ago, is that plants were growing in all directions, not close together but here and there, rising twelve and even eighteen inches above the surface of the sand. One could imagine nothing more improbable than that growth would take place midst this sand, yet the slightest moisture put upon it produces growth of some kind, it may be especially in this the springtime of the year. With the rising of the sun there was a mist & as I trotted across the stony ridges every pebble and splint had moisture upon it, showing that even without rain some water is made available by Nature for the earth's surface. One by picking up many stones might have collected enough water to assuage a thirst.
Dismounting I broke a branch from off a shrub. The stem was hard covered with a greyish green thick bark, every branchlette was covered thickly with buds which may develop into some sort of leaf or it may be flower. I shall keep my eyes upon them, and let you know later what they come to. When I look at plants in the dessert I am reminded of an account which was in the school books of my early youth about a dervish who was a witness in a court case. In giving