Magical properties

The wholesale destruction of cities, libraries, even an entire way of life in the fifth century left the world teetering on the brink of darkness. The life behind the works of such men as Virgil, Cicero, and Plato and culture that fostered those lives dims and flickers. The works themselves escape destruction and what is left to the new world of the Middle Ages are books that perplex and mystify. Thomas Cahill illustrates the strangeness of books through this example: “The word grammar – the first step in the course of classical study that molded all educated men from Plato to Augustine – will be mispronounced by one barbarian tribe as ‘glamour.’ In other words, whoever has grammar – whoever can read – possesses magic inexplicable.”