stick. That such thrashings should have been possible at a school
as a continual part of one's daily life, seems to me to argue a
very ill condition of school discipline.

At this period I remember to have passed one set of holidays--the
midsummer holidays--in my father's chambers in Lincoln's Inn. There
was often a difficulty about the holidays,--as to what should be
done with me. On this occasion my amusement consisted in wandering
about among those old deserted buildings, and in reading Shakespeare
out of a bi-columned edition, which is still among my books. It
was not that I had chosen Shakespeare, but that there was nothing
else to read.

After a while my brother left Winchester and accompanied my father
to America. Then another and a different horror fell to my fate.
My college bills had not been paid, and the school tradesmen who
administered to the wants of the boys were told not to extend their
credit to me. Boots, waistcoats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, which,
with some slight superveillance, were at the command of other
scholars, were closed luxuries to me. My schoolfellows of course
knew that it was so, and I became a Pariah. It is the nature of
boys to be cruel. I have sometimes doubted whether among each other
they do usually suffer much, one from the other's cruelty; but I
suffered horribly! I could make no stand against it. I had no friend
to whom I could pour out my sorrows. I was big, and awkward, and
ugly, and, I have no doubt, sulked about in a most unattractive
manner. Of course I was ill-dressed and dirty. But ah! how well
I remember all the agonies of my young heart; how I considered
whether I should always be alone; whether I could not find my way
up to the top of that college tower, and from thence put an end to