The meaning of words changes over time. The classics are like strong currents in which some words have been caught and carried for many centuries. The way we sp

The meaning of words changes over time. The classics are like strong currents in which some words have been caught and carried for many centuries. The way we speak and write today is an echo of the words spoken and written before us. There are some who prefer to speak and write free from the burden of what was spoken or written before. They may see themselves as radical or pragmatic, seeking to subvert the influence of the past or at least avoid its prejudices. But they are no more likely to subvert or avoid those past influences than others who have immersed themselves in them because whatever they say or write will be heard and read by audiences who have been brought up in them. As American classic author Mark Twain observed, the past does not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. We read the classics to find the rhythms and rhymes of life, to find articulated with clarity what we ourselves might otherwise only have seen in dim half-light. Once in the light, these rhythms and rhymes become a shared experience that binds us together, not only in terms of how we speak and write, but in terms of how we think and feel, yes ultimately in terms of who we are.