It had evidently been of monastic
origin; perhaps one of those collegiate establishments built of
yore for the promotion of learning, where the patient monk, in
the ample solitude of the cloister, added page to page and volume
to volume, emulating in the productions of his brain the
magnitude of the pile he inhabited.
As I was seated in this musing mood a small panelled door in an
arch at the upper end of the hall was opened, and a number of
gray-headed old men, clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by
one, proceeding in that manner through the hall, without uttering
a word, each turning a pale face on me as he passed, and
disappearing through a door at the lower end.
I was singularly struck with their appearance; their black cloaks
and antiquated air comported with the style of this most
venerable and mysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts of the
departed years, about which I had been musing, were passing in
review before me. Pleasing myself with such fancies, I set out,
in the spirit of romance, to explore what I pictured to myself a
realm of shadows existing in the very centre of substantial
realities.
My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior courts and
corridors and dilapidated cloisters, for the main edifice had
many additions and dependencies, built at various times and in
various styles.
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