Nothing, however, would do; the die was cast,
and for the sea I was to prepare.
What fool was it who said that the happiest times of our lives is
passed at school? There may, indeed, be exceptions, but the remark
cannot be generalized. Stormy as has been my life, the most miserable
part of it (with very little exception) was passed at school; and my
mind never received so much injury from any scenes of vice and excess
in after-life, as it did from the shameful treatment and bad example
I met with there. If my bosom burned with fiend-like passions, whose
fault was it? How had the sacred pledge, given by the master, been
redeemed? Was I not sacrificed to the most sordid avarice, in the
first instance, and almost flayed alive in the second, to gratify
revenge? Of the filthy manner in which our food was prepared, I can
only say that the bare recollection of it excites nausea; and to this
hour, bread and milk, suet pudding, and shoulders of mutton, are
objects of my deep-rooted aversion. The conduct of the ushers, who
were either tyrannical extortioners, or partakers in our crimes--the
constant loss of our clothes by the dishonesty or carelessness of the
servants--the purloining our silver spoons, sheets, and towels, when
we went away, upon the plea of "custom"--the charges in the account
for windows which I had never broken, and books which I had never
received--the shameful difference between the annual cost promised by
the master, and the sum actually charged, ought to have opened the
eyes of my father.
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