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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
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