University of the South - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Sewanee, TN)

Page 17 text:

PREFACE. THIS is Sewanee ' s first real attempt at an Annual. We have had anniversary numbers of the college magazine, but these in no way approached the true Annual. It is un- fortunate that we could not have been better prepared foi our debut. The publication of Cap and Gown was decided upon about two months ago, and the book is mainly the result of a few weeks ' work, done in the midst of final examinations. Such as it is, however, we present it to our readers, confident that it will be found to possess some value, and that if it does nothing else, it will ensure the publication of another and necessarily a better one next year.

Page 19 text:

Jl« Sometimes I can hear a fading laugh, or the dash of a broken glee, Or watch a shadowy face rise up and pass like a mist of the sea ; Sometimes I can see how the sunlight fell deep down where the fern-fronds grow, And hear the sounds of life float up from the valley far below. That summer was a new experience. Jack persuaded me to go — Jack, who knows everybody and goes every- where. I told him that I wanted real scenery, without railways in the foreground ; where the streams were lazy little streams that were of no use ; where the rocks were covered with lichens and ferns, and not with advertisements ; where there were no promenades, nor brass bands, nor anything that I had been bored with every summer of my life. And Jack said, Go to Sewanee. Sewanee? Yes; go to Nashville or Chattanooga, and you can hear all about it. But I want an unknown place. Jack laughed. When you have exhausted Nashville and Chattanooga, he said, you will only know how to get there. Among the mountains? On top the mountains. Daily mail? I am neither Nashville nor Chattanooga, Billy. Bye-bye. It is a refuge for idealists and dreamers — go ! And Jack vanished. I think laziness took me to Sewanee. It was so troublesome to think up another place. I took my ticket to Chattanooga, and in Chattanooga I asked, Where is Sewanee? Get off at Cowan and go up the mountain, was the answer, and I turned away. Cowan, I said, I must remember that or I shall never reach Sewanee — Cowan. And the ugly name jingled through my mind, keeping time to the clanking ' of the train.