If you're in New York City and want to travel through time with some of the most creative people who ever lived, you must spend an hour at the New York Public Library in the exhibit "Celebrating 100 Years." It's literally breathtaking -- I found myself gasping each time I caught sight of something new.
First it was a copy of the Declaration -- handwritten by Thomas Jefferson. 
It was thrilling to be able to lean in and almost touch my nose to the glass to peer at his very sensible, legible handwriting.
I turned around, and there was the exquisitely beautiful scroll of the Tale of Genji, still luminous and dreamlike after so many centuries.
e.e. cummings' typewriter sat in a case, another held Jack Keruoac's glasses and rolling papers, yet another displayed the notebook George Eliot kept when she was learning Hebrew as she wrote Daniel Deronda. Malcom X's diary was writ large upon the wall, there was an illustrated Megillah, a brilliantly colored book of prints by Matisse, the walking stick Virginia Woolf carried with her into the river, after filling her pockets with stones. Near the Declaration, a heartbreaking letter from a slave to his wife, who had been sold, telling her that his owner wanted him to forget her and marry someone else. Just a few of the objects that fill the gallery on the main floor of this beautiful building, now 100 years old, guarded by those famous lions.
These artifacts, created by hands long gone, still speak in strong, clear voices today. I'm grateful the New York Public Library has shared them with all of us!