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.