“The Campus”

Excerpt from “Remembering Eternity”: “The buildings had variegated slate roofs, crenellated turrets, pointed arches, and leaded, mullioned, casement windows. The sandstone of their walls, modulated, in gray, buff, violet-brown, and muted black, gave an observer the refreshing, comforting impression of a stream bed. Doors to the dormitories were arched and massively heavy, studded with thick, pointed nails, and transected by elaborate iron strapwork in the shape of crossbows. Verdure softened and chastened the massive bulk and rectilinearity of the buildings: Kentucky coffee trees with their sinewy, fissured bark and long, ovate leaves; vase-shaped American elms with sinuous branches still holding their foliage; a pair of delicate, droop-branched Weeping Japanese cherry trees; and the espaliered magnolias, hydrangeas, wisterias, and honeysuckles clinging to and climbing up the walls of the structures, as if in tactful assertion of the preeminence of nature’s productions over those of mankind.
At the end of the vista, obliquely angled toward him, rose what appeared to be a castle donjon but was actually Blair Tower. This architectural tour de force had been clearly intended as the capstone of the walk through the lower part of campus. Formed as a rectangular solid, the keep had four crenellated turrets, one at each corner. These corners consisted of towers quoined with alternately offset, sand-shaded stones and inset with small, irregularly situated, mirror-like windows. The façade of the structure featured four symmetrically set windows, two on each level of living quarters: the top row triple-paned and the lower one double-paned. A huge, round, black-metal clock had been inset in the center of the upper story, between the windows. Sculpted relief work interrupted the fenestration of the lower story. A wide stair led up to the depressed arch that opened like a great mouth, swallowing all who reached it and depositing them moments later on the outer side of the Tower.”