The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1897-04-27
TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL
The Great Exposition Will Open
It's Gates May l.
a Scene of SpIendOr Whose COM
pIeteness Has Never Been RivaIed
General Reduction in Rail-
road Rates.
Especial Nashville (TennJ Letter |

Especial Nashville (TennI Letter
The Tennessee centennial at Nash
Fille, considered as a spectacular effect,
has one marked superiority to the late
Columbian exposition at Chicago. In
the white city there was no sense of
depth. 1t was all foreground. In
whatever direction one looked there
was nothing whatever but lath and
plaster, gilt and tinsel. Nowhere
could one look out beyond the tenn
porary splendor of the passing hour
and rest ones imagination with
glimpse of the permanent and the his
toric. Now at Nashville things are diff
ferent. Standing on the "Rialto" here
and facing eastward one beholds great
white statue of Athenae, beyond her
the replica of the Parthenon, and be-
yond that and round about white
arches, glittering domes, reaches of pale
green waters, deep green stretches of
lawn that have golden tones in the
sunshine, brightness, lightness, long
perspectives of white wall. shadowy
darkness in arch after arch, world of
CLEAN and glitter, fascinating, insub-
stantiality that has sprung suddenly
out of the earth, and shall return
whence it was digged. But this is not
all. While standing on the Rialto
wheel about and face eastward. The
direction of the bridge is continued N
broad avenue that falls away straight
III front of you among shelving lawns
and scattered trees. 1t curves to the
left and disappears. The eye, however,
still ranges on. Bright sunshine and
blue Sky overhang a wide valley, and
beyond the valley there are many
houses. Among them low-lying clouds
of smoke blend hazily with the blue of
distance and billow upward along q
ridge crowded with buildings. Here
and there tower shoots high above the
haze. a spire top catches the sunlight
and glitters like jewel. Straight N
front of you, at the very center of the
view, browning and dominating the
whole vista, yelled little by gray
smoke, softened by the blue of the hori-
ION and backgrounded by blue of
heaven, there is uplifted against the
clouds the historic state house of Ten
nesSee.
The scenic value of this imaginative
undertone, so to speak, which is pos
sessed by the Nashville exposition, can
not be overestimated. So speaks Ma
thaniel Stephenson, Of the Cincinnati
Commercial Tribune, who visited the
exposition grounds last week. In the
course of most brilliant piece of word
painting he said:
"And here in the midst of the battle
fields, where Tennessee made such q
valiant attempt to break from the
strong bond of the national union, she is
now celebrating her original entry into
that estate. a new day is dawning, not
only literally as the visions of the night
fade away, while the shadows begin to
lift, but fguratively, in the choice of
the event to which this southern state
asks all the world to do honor. If the
darkness in the shadow of the Parthe-
non has its ghosts of war and ruin. the
brightness that is succeeding it brings
forth the white statue of Athens, and
thus
The old order changes, giving place to
And God fulfflls Himself in many WAYS
But now the darkness of the ninht
has changed imperceptibIy to an alto
gether different one, the darkness of the
dawn. You have not yet become aware
OF any increase of light. What YOU have
'eallzed is vague, uncanny feeling. as
If things fixed and immovable we're
slowly drawing near you. Large, dark
SHAPES OF buildings are stealing grad
uaIIy into the range of vision. Great
buIks of blackness take on form and
diStinctness and resolve themselves into
towers, domes, porticces. Bit by bit
the very air itself is playing the same
strange trick. The starshine is falling
steadily nearer to the earth. A blue.
never seen at any other hour of the q
gllmmers downward from the descend
ing stars and makes the whole atmos-
rhere one endless starry simmer. This
is neither night nor morning. but the
most mysterious of all the hours. the
hour before the dawn, when the ord,-
nary conditions of life do not exist
You feel that you are no longer uDon
earth, but wandering about the streets
OF some dream city, tenanted by YOU
known not what and located in some far
place unexplored by man.
The buildings loom vaster and vaster
as the blue simmer grows steadily
deeper The dome of the Agricultural
building is crowned by the stars them
selves. The tower of the auditorium
springs away into the very heart of
heaven. The pillars of the Parthenon
have the height of mountains. The
statue Of Athens is some immeasurablv
vast creature which is not to be ap-
preached.
And all these monsters of the dawn
have the strange effect Of being asleep.
They are buildings no longer, they are
living creatures wrapped in dead sIum-
Der, gazing eastward with siohtIess
eyes, that will be awakened by the dawn.
Perhaps it is the continuous though i'm
perceptible changing of the degree OF
distinctness in their details, due to the