What he needed was to work in the shadows while another wielded power, he himself holding aloof from responsibility, reading noteworthy books within the four walls of a quiet room, writing works of his own invention, to no man subservient, beholden to none—and such was Erasmus’s notion of an ideal existence.
— Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam
There should be a particular word for that unexpected and poignant sense of kinship across centuries, where despite all the temporal, linguistic, and cultural differences, you feel like you’ve shared a knowing glance and a smile.