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 inclosure 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 'Dominie,' 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 r