They had never been warriors, they insisted, even though they knew how to defend themselves and how to attack. It was not what they did in war that made them proud of their past, they said. It was what they had done in peace. It was the art they made, the homage they paid to mystery and beauty. They offered tribute to strangeness because it was strangeness that they appreciated most in the world when they were alive. They saw the world’s meaning as beyond their grasp, and they relished not understanding it. They saw each other as creatures not to be easily known. Thus, it was the strangeness
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