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._ 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-be-thumbed 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.
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