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 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. Yet I must
believe that my first mental development had in it much of the
uncommon -- even much of the outre. Upon mankind at large the events
of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite
impression. All is gray shadow -- a weak and irregular remembrance --
an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric
pains. With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the
energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as
vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian
medals.
Yet in fact -- in the fact of the world's view -- how little was
there to remember! The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to
bed; the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and
perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its pastimes, its
intrigues; -- these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to
involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, an
universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and
spirit-stirring. "Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle de fer!"
In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my
disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my
schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an
ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself; -- over all with a
single exception. This exception was found in the person of a
scholar, who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and
surname as myself; -- a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable;
for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those everyday
appellations which seem, by prescriptive right, to have been, time
out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this narrative I have
therefore designated myself as William Wilson, -- a fictitious title
not very dissimilar to the real. My namesake alone, of those who in
school phraseology constituted "our set," presumed to compete with me
in the studies of the class -- in the sports and broils of the
play-ground -- to refuse implicit belief in my assertions, and
submission to my will -- indeed, to interfere with my arbitrary
dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there is on earth a supreme
and unqualified despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in
boyhood over the less energetic spirits of its companions.
Wilson's rebellion was to me a source of the greatest embarrassment;
-- the more so as, in spite of the bravado with which in public I
made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I secretly felt
that I feared him, and could not help thinking the equality which he
maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority;
since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual struggle. Yet this
superiority -- even this equality -- was in truth acknowledged by no
one but myself; our associates, by some unaccountable blindness,
seemed not even to suspect it. Indeed, his competition, his
resistance, and especially his impertinent and dogged interference
with my purposes, were not more pointed than private. He appeared to
be destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate
energy of mind which enabled me to excel. In his rivalry he might
have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart,
astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could
not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and
pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his
contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly most
unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only conceive this
singular behavior to arise from a consummate self-conceit assuming
the vulgar airs of patronage and protection.
Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with
our identity of name, and the mere accident of our having entered the
school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion that we were
brothers, among the senior classes in the academy. These do not
usually inquire with much strictness into the affairs of their
juniors. I have before said, or should have said, that Wilson was
not, in the most remote degree, connected with my family. But
assuredly if we had been brothers we must have been twins; for, after
leaving Dr. Bransby's, I casually learned that my namesake was born
on the nineteenth of January, 1813 -- and this is a somewhat
remarkable coincidence; for the day is precisely that of my own
nativity.
It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned
me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable spirit of
contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. We
had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel in which, yielding me
publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make
me feel that it was he who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride on
my part, and a veritable dignity on his own, kept us always upon what
are called "speaking terms," while there were many points of strong
congeniality in our tempers, operating to awake me in a sentiment
which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into
friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe,
my real feelings towards him. They formed a motley and heterogeneous
admixture; -- some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred, some
esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy cur
iosity. To
the moralist it will be unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson
and myself were the most inseparable of companions.
It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between us,
which turned all my attacks upon him, (and they were many, either
open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical joke (giving
pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than into a more
serious and determined hostility. But my endeavours on this head were
by no means uniformly successful, even when my plans were the most
wittily concocted; for my namesake had much about him, in character,
of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the
poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and
absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one
vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising,
perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any
antagonist less at his wit's end than myself; -- my rival had a
weakness in the faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from
raising his voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this
defect I did not fall to take what poor advantage lay in my power.
Wilson's retaliations in kind were many; and there was one form of
his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity
first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me, is a
question I never could solve; but, having discovered, he habitually
practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly
patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words
were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of my arrival, a second
William Wilson came also to the academy, I felt angry with him for
bearing the name, and doubly disgusted with the name because a
stranger bore it, who would be the cause of its twofold repetition,
who would be constantly in my presence, and whose concerns, in the
ordinary routine of the school business, must inevitably, on account
of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with my own.
The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew stronger with every
circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical, between
my rival and myself. I had not then discovered the remarkable fact
that we were of the same age; but I saw that we were of the same
height, and I perceived that we were even singularly alike in general
contour of person and outline of feature. I was galled, too, by the
rumor touching a relationship, which had grown current in the upper
forms. In a word, nothing could more seriously disturb me, although I
scrupulously concealed such disturbance,) than any allusion to a
similarity of mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in
truth, I had no reason to believe that (with the exception of the
matter of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself,) this
similarity had ever been made a subject of comment, or even observed
at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all its bearings,
and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he could discover in such
circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance, can only be
attributed, as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration.
His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in
words and in actions; and most admirably did he play his part. My
dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner were,
without difficulty, appropriated; in spite of his constitutional
defect, even my voice did not escape him. My louder tones were, of
course, unattempted, but then the key, it was identical; and his
singular whisper, it grew the very echo of my own.
How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it
could not justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture to
describe. I had but one consolation -- in the fact that the
imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I had to
endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of my namesake
himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the intended
effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting he had
inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful of the public
applause which the success of his witty endeavours might have so
easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not feel his design,
perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer, was, for
many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. Perhaps the
gradation of his copy rendered it not so readily perceptible; or,
more possibly, I owed my security to the master air of the copyist,
who, disdaining the letter, (which in a painting is all the obtuse
can see,) gave but the full spirit of his original for my individual
contemplation and chagrin.
I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of
patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious
interference withy my will. This interference often took the
ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but hinted
or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which gained strength
as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the
simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when the
suggestions of my rival were on the side of those errors or follies
so usual to his immature age and seeming inexperience; that his moral
sense, at least, if not his general talents and worldly wisdom, was
far keener than my own; and that I might, to-day, have been a better,
and thus a happier man, had I less frequently rejected the counsels
embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but too cordially
hated and too bitterly despised.
As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his
distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly what
I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in the
first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in regard to
him might have been easily ripened into friendship: but, in the
latter months of my residence at the academy, although the intrusion
of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt, in some measure, abated, my
sentiments, in nearly similar proportion, partook very much of
positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and
afterwards avoided, or made a show of avoiding me.
It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an
altercation of violence with him, in which he was more than usually
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 69