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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
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