A preoccupied family: they none of them threw themselves into the interests of the rest, but each ploughed his or her own furrow. Their thoughts, their little passions and hopes and desires, all ran along separate lines. Family life is like this—animated, but collateral. – Rose Macaulay, Daisy & Daphne, 1928

Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression. – T. E. Lawrence