Greets Students
To come back, after an absence,
to the sight of the University—especially
if at twilight
in the fall when grey mists
change to purple shadows across
the green and red fields and the
far blue mountains—is to have
the heart lift with a strange
exaltation at its beauty. Then in
the joyous bustle of human life
we turn to other things. Old
friends are greeted, fine new
faces people our imagination,
and we exchange tales of summer
excitements. The new student,
even more than the old,
covers with a humdrum manner
the thrill of a new adventure and
wears secretly in his dreams the
nodding feathers of romance.
I want you to see how the
welcome is here, all about you;
in the beauty of the place, in old
memories, in the hearty greetings
of friends, in the lifted
hands of the professors, in the
mingled shouts of the gridiron
and most of all in the indefinable,
inexpressible renewal of the
spirit of Old Mother. By her
vistaed pillars and her storied
arches, through her old traditions,
of which you are to become
a part, the University of
Virginia welcomes you.
I seek to do no more than to
voice this welcome to the new
session to every student, except to
express two thoughts that have
crystallized out of my life at the
University. Here where the love
of honor and truth becomes a
passion, freedom to seek the
truth and courage to maintain
it belong to the spirit of the
place and through the standards
of the past we come to feel the
truth of Robert Louis Stevenson's
words, "Not even God himself
can forgive the hanger back."
—The Late James Southall Wilson
Former Edgar Allen Poe Professor
of English Literature,
Dean of Graduate School of
Arts and Sciences
