Description
The approach from Gilman Street gradually gives way to the Far Common, a leafy, manicured expanse of ground that proceeds the First Academy Building, which Knowles derives almost entirely from the Academy Building at Phillips Exeter, having the same cupola and similar Latin inscription over the entrance. The First Academy Building, the Georgian red brick dormitories, and the Gothic-style chapel, form a quadrangle around the Center Common. There is then a group of Colonial houses for the Dean, the Headmaster, and other faculty members, along an old London-style lane leading from the dormitories to the Naguamsett River and the Crew House. Progressing in another direction, past the Field House (or "The Cage") the Center Common opens onto the Playing Fields, with tennis courts on the left, the Devon Woods on the right, and enormous open grounds for playing football, lacrosse and soccer. Directly ahead, far across the Playing Fields, is the stadium (which envelops the swimming pool), the Devon River and the climactic tree that is the basis for a very crucial part of the plot. Beyond all that, Knowles names the excess wilderness as the Fields Beyond.
The town of Devon, as described by Knowles, is of course very similar to the real-life Exeter, New Hampshire and the Devon River and the Naguamsett River are based on the Exeter River and the Squamscott River. Exactly like its real-life basis, the fresh-water Devon River eventually falls into the tidal Naguamsett, a marshy, mud-banked saline body of water that eventually connected to the ocean. The two rivers were separated by a dam and a small waterfall.
Read more about this topic: The Devon School
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)
“It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)