The truth is that nations have their day; and to a period of glorious splendour succeeds a time of lassitude and slumber.

It is a law of nature.

And then one day some danger threatens them, stirs them from their torpor and they awake.
This immobility of the countries of the Crescent was once dear to me.
If the end is to pass through life with the minimum of suffering, disdaining all vain striving, and to die entranced by radiant hopes, the Orientals are the only wise men.

But now that greedy nations beset them on all sides their dreaming is no longer possible.

They must awake, alas.
They must awake; and already the awakening is at hand.