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hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery -- a world of matter for solemn remark, or for more solemn
meditation.
The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of the
largest constituted the play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine hard gravel. I well remember it had no
trees, nor benches, nor anything similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small
parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred division we passed only upon rare
occasions indeed -- such as a first advent to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or
friend having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas or Midsummer holy-days.
But the house! -- how quaint an old building was this! -- to me how veritably a palace of enchantment! There
was really no end to its windings -- to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult, at any given time, to
say with certainty upon which of its two stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there
were sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or descent. Then the lateral branches were
innumerable -- inconceivable -- and so returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to the
whole mansion were not very far different from those with which we pondered upon infinity. During the five
years of my residence here, I was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote locality lay the little
sleeping apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen or twenty other scholars.
The school-room was the largest in the house -- I could not help thinking, in the world. It was very long,
narrow, and dismally low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and terror-inspiring
angle was a square enclosure of eight or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, "during hours," of our principal, the
Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the
"Dominic," we would all have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two other
similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of the
"classical" usher, one of the "English and mathematical." Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing
in endless irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient, and time-worn, piled desperately
with much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial letters, names at full length, grotesque figures, and
other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original form might have been their
portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one extremity of the room, and a clock of
stupendous dimensions at the other.
Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the years
of the third lustrum of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no external world of incident to
occupy or amuse it; and the apparently dismal monotony of a school was replete with more intense excitement
than my riper youth has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must believe that my first
mental development had in it much of the uncommon -- even much of the outre. Upon mankind at large the
events of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All is gray shadow -- a weak
and irregular remembrance -- an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me
this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory
in lines as vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian medals.
Yet in fact -- in the fact of the world's view -- how little was there to remember! The morning's awakening,
the nightly summons to bed; the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and perambulations;
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