Tales from The Cloisters

“At The Cloisters provision is made for all kinds of tastes.You can swing in a hammock under the colonnade from which the building takes its name, or lie on a ‘Tocah’ on the roof ,or sleep on a stretcher,as I did, with all the windows wide open so that you are all but in the open air”

The arrangements are deliciously primitive.You dispense with nearly all the ridiculous toilet paraphernalia that an artificial civilisation has built up around you.”

“After six hours of uninterrupted dreamless slumber I awoke fresh and fit ,and took my morning bath in the invigorating sun-saturated air that sweeps the Cloisters through and through and in the deep cold water of the marblebathing pool-on the edge of which sat our Californian ,eating oranges.And then, breakfast on the lawn,in the open air-always in the open air”

Remarks from Albert Dawson after a visit to the last Alpha Union Summer School in August 1911