How is it possible under such conditions for much vegetation to flourish?… All told there is hardly enough covering to hide the anatomy of the earth. ~John C. Van Dyke, The Desert, 1901

What makes the desert beautiful… is that somewhere it hides a well… ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Content can soothe, where e’er by fortune placed,Can rear a garden in a desert waste.~Henry Kirke White (1785–1806), “Clifton Grove”

Desert . . . (one of) the loneliest land(s) that ever came out of God’s hands… ~Mary Hunter Austin, “The Land of Little Rain,” 1903 (emphasis added)