AN OLD LOVE LETTER
What is it like to read a nine-hundred-year old love letter? Russian archeologist Vanentin Yanin knows. He and his team unearthed Russia’s oldest known love letter in a dig at a medieval city of Novgorod. According to the Washington Post account, the letter was written by a young woman to her estranged lover around A.D. 1100. It is a plea for reconciliation and reunion. Reflecting on his find, Professor Yanin mused, “A person lives and dies and suffers… after two or three generations no one remembers. Then five hundred years pass, or nine hundred years… we learn her name… we read her letters… it’s like a resurrection. This is a profoundly moving thing.” To read a love letter — whether it is nine hundred or two thousand years old, brings another person to life for us. Our hearts are able to enter into the feelings of the writer, making him or her “real” to us. Thus the importance of reading…
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