In Praise of Sewanee

Coming suddenly upon Sewanee, as one does, driving over the mountain, at sunset one mild December evening, I was struck anew at the beauty of this “city set on a hill”—a place apart, a citadel, a prospect, a microcosm, a world unto itself; and its quiet assurance may be read in the faces and the bearing of those who call the mountain home. Nestled at the heart of the Cumberland plateau, two thousand feet above sea level, the Gothic lines of the University of the South stand silhouetted against the sky. From All Saints Chapel emanated strains of music, as I traversed the familiar paths to look up a friend, an Englishwoman who now makes her home here, keeping a loving eye on the boys in the dormitory she supervises, in the tradition of the beloved “Miss Johnnie” of another era, the hostess of Tuckaway.

Indeed, any Englishman or Anglican or Anglophile would be at home here; the English character is at once apparent—from Breslin Tower (reminiscent of Magdalen Tower, Oxford) and the ivy- covered buildings, to the professors and students in their gowns (and to be a “gownsman” is a coveted student honor), to the “pub” in the Bishop’s Common (the student center).

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Barbara Wilbur

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Coming suddenly upon Sewanee, as one does, driving over the mountain, at sunset one mild December evening, I was struck anew at the beauty of this “city set on a hill”—a place apart, a citadel, a prospect, a microcosm, a world unto itself; and its quiet assurance may be read in the faces and the bearing of those who call the mountain home. Nestled at the heart of the Cumberland plateau, two thousand feet above sea level, the Gothic lines of the University of the South stand silhouetted against the sky. From All Saints Chapel emanated strains of music, as I traversed the familiar paths to look up a friend, an Englishwoman who now makes her home here, keeping a loving eye on the boys in the dormitory she supervises, in the tradition of the beloved “Miss Johnnie” of another era, the hostess of Tuckaway.

Indeed, any Englishman or Anglican or Anglophile would be at home here; the English character is at once apparent—from Breslin Tower (reminiscent of Magdalen Tower, Oxford) and the ivy- covered buildings, to the professors and students in their gowns (and to be a “gownsman” is a coveted student honor), to the “pub” in the Bishop’s Common (the student center).