I would wish them to seek out for me, in the details I
      am about to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness
      of error. I would have them allow—what they cannot refrain from
      allowing—that, although temptation may have erewhile existed as
      great, man was never thus, at least, tempted before—certainly,
      never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has never thus
      suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am I not
      now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest
      of all sublunary visions? I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily
      excitable temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable;
      and, in my earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully
      inherited the family character. As I advanced in years it was
      more strongly developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of
      serious disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to
      myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and
      a prey to the most ungovernable passions. Weak-minded, and beset
      with constitutional infirmities akin to my own, my parents could
      do but little to check the evil propensities which distinguished
      me. Some feeble and ill-directed efforts resulted in complete
      failure on their part, and, of course, in total triumph on mine. Thenceforward my voice was a household law; and at an age when
      few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to
      the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the
      master of my own actions. My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a
      large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of
      England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees,
      and where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it
      was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old
      town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness
      of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its
      thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight,
      at the deep hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour,
      with sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky
      atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and
      asleep. It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any
      manner experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the
      school and its concerns. Steeped in misery as I am—misery, alas! only too real—I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however
      slight and temporary, in the weakness of a few rambling details. These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even ridiculous in
      themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious importance, as
      connected with a period and a locality when and where I recognise
      the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterwards so
      fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember. The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were
      extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of
      mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like
      rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but
      thrice a week—once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by
      two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks in a body
      through some of the neighbouring fields—and twice during Sunday,
      when we were paraded in the same formal manner to the morning and
      evening service in the one church of the village. Of this church
      the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of
      wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote
      pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended
      the pulpit! This reverend man, with countenance so demurely
      benign, with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wig
      so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast,—-could this be he
      who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments,
      administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution! At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with
      jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and
      ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty
      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 holidays. 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
      “Dominie,” we would all have willingly perished by the _peine
      forte et dure_.