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.
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