I remember reading in Candide that in order to understand the world, one must travel. Now whether or not this is an absolute, I cannot say, only that, the more I travel, the more I learn about my own place of origin, if only by explaining it to others. It is quite possible that I have learnt more in books about places than I have in actually going to them, but then who would deny that regarding facts? It is almost as though we neither believe what we have read, nor are believed by others until we can claim to have actually 'been there' or 'done that'. Ernst Junger, a German soldier in WWI, noted in his journal Copse 125 that a sound opinion finds many advocates, but absolutely no martyrs, and that it is only
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