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From My Birth I Have Aspired Like The Eagle - But Unlike The Eagle, My Wings Have Failed. . . . Congratulate Me Then That I Have Found A Fitting Scope For My Powers.

-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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From My Birth I

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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From My Birth I Have Aspired Like The Eagle - But Unlike The Eagle, My Wings Have Failed. . . . Congratulate Me Then That I Have Found A Fitting Scope For My Powers.

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A Lofty Sense Of Independence Is, In Man, The Best Privilege Of His Nature.

Man," I Cried, "how Ignorant Art Thou In Thy Pride Of Wisdom!

It Is True, We Shall Be Monsters, Cut Off From All The World; But On That Account We Shall Be More Attached To One Another.

He Was Soon Borne Away By The Waves And Lost In Darkness And Distance.

Nothing Is More Painful To The Human Mind Than, After The Feelings Have Been Worked Up By A Quick Succession Of Events, The Dead Calmness Of Inaction And Certainty Which Follows And Deprives The Soul Both Of Hope And Fear.

When I Run Over The Frightful Catalogue Of My Sins, I Cannot Believe That I Am The Same Creature Whose Thoughts Were Once Filled With Sublime And Transcendent Visions Of The Beauty And The Majesty Of Goodness. But It Is Even So; The Fallen Angel Becomes A Malignant Devil.

Supremely Frightful Would Be The Effect Of Any Human Endeavor To Mock The Stupendous Mechanism Of The Creator Of The World.

Life, Although It May Only Be An Accumulation Of Anguish, Is Dear To Me, And I Will Defend It.

Nothing Contributes So Much To Tranquilize The Mind As A Steady Purpose - A Point On Which The Soul May Fix Its Intellectual Eye.

Women Are Told From Their Infancy, And Taught By The Example Of Their Mothers, That A Little Knowledge Of Human Weakness, Justly Termed Cunning, Softness Of Temper, Outward Obedience And A Scrupulous Attention To A Puerile Kind Of Propriety, Will Obtain For Them The Protection Of Man.

She Was No Longer That Happy Creature Who In Earlier Youth Wandered With Me On The Banks Of The Lake And Talked With Ecstasy Of Our Future Prospects. The First Of Those Sorrows Which Are Sent To Wean Us From The Earth Had Visited Her, And Its Dimming Influence Quenched Her Dearest Smiles.

We Are Fashioned Creatures, But Half Made Up. - Victor Frankenstein

It Is A Strange Feeling For A Girl When First She Finds The Power Put Into Her Hand Of Influencing The Destiny Of Another To Happiness Or Misery. She Is Like A Magician Holding For The First Time A Fairy Wand, Not Having Yet Had Experience Of Its Potency.

...we Are Unfashioned Creatures, But Half Made Up, If One Wiser, Better, Dearer Than Ourselves - Such A Friend Ought To Be - Do Not Lend His Aid To Perfectionate Our Weak And Faulty Natures.

How Mutable Are Our Feelings, And How Strange Is That Clinging Love We Have Of Life Even In The Excess Of Misery!

And Now, Once Again, I Bid My Hideous Progeny Go Forth And Prosper. I Have An Affection For It, For It Was The Offspring Of Happy Days, When Death And Grief Were But Words, Which Found No True Echo In My Heart.

The Time At Length Arrives, When Grief Is Rather An Indulgence Than A Necessity And The Smile That Plays Upon The Lips, Although It May Be Deemed A Sacrilege, Is Not Banished.

Elegance Is Inferior To Virtue.

Truly Disappointment Is The Guardian Deity Of Human Life; She Sits At The Threshold Of Unborn Time, And Marshals The Events As They Come Forth.

Seek Happiness In Tranquility And Avoid Ambition Even If It Be Only The Apparently Innocent One Of Distinguishing Yourself In Science And Discoveries.

But Her's Was The Misery Of Innocence, Which, Like A Cloud That Passes Over The Fair Moon, For A While Hides, But Cannot Tarnish Its Brightness.

But Soon, I Shall Die, And What I Now Feel Be No Longer Felt. Soon These Burning Miseries Will Be Extinct.

The Instructor Can Scarcely Give Sensibility Where It Is Essentially Wanting, Nor Talent To The Unpercipient Block. But He Can Cultivate And Direct The Affections Of The Pupil, Who Puts Forth, As A Parasite, Tendrils By Which To Cling, Not Knowing To What - To A Supporter Or A Destroyer.

The Careful Rearer Of The Ductile Human Plant Can Instil His Own Religion, And Surround The Soul By Such A Moral Atmosphere, As Shall Become To Its Latest Day The Air It Breathes.

These Wonderful Narrations Inspired Me With Strange Feelings. Was Man, Indeed, At Once So Powerful, So Virtuous, And Magnificent, Yet So Vicious And Base? He Appeared At One Time A Mere Scion Of The Evil Principle And At Another As All That Can Be Conceived Of Noble And Godlike.

Standing Armies Can Never Consist Of Resolute Robust Men; They May Be Well-disciplined Machines, But They Will Seldom Contain Men Under The Influence Of Strong Passions, Or With Very Vigorous Faculties.

The Different Accidents Of Life Are Not So Changeable As The Feelings Of Human Nature.

I Saw No Cause For Their Unhappiness, But I Was Deeply Affected By It. If Such Lovely Creatures Were Miserable, It Was Less Strange That I, An Imperfect And Solitary Being, Should Be Wretched.

One Man's Life Or Death Were But A Small Price To Pay For The Acquirement Of The Knowledge Which I Sought

I Ought To Be Thy Adam, But I Am Rather The Fallen Angel.

I Trembled, And My Heart Failed Within Me; When, On Looking Up, I Saw, By The Light Of The Moon, The Daemon At The Casement.

What Are We, The Inhabitants Of This Globe, Least Among The Many That People Infinite Space? Our Minds Embrace Infinity; The Visible Mechanism Of Our Being Is Subject To Merest Accident.

Life And Death Appeared To Me Ideal Bounds, Which I Should First Break Through, And Pour A Torrent Of Light Into Our Dark World.

I Saw And Heard Of None Like Me. Was I Then A Monster, A Blot Upon The Earth, From Which All Men Fled, And Whom All Men Disowned?

It Would Be An Endless Task To Trace The Variety Of Meannesses, Cares, And Sorrows Into Which Women Are Plunged By The Prevailing Opinion That They Were Created Rather To Feel Than Reason.

The Air Of Fashion, Which Many Young People Are So Eager To Attain, Always Strikes Me Like The Studied Attitudes Of Some Modern Prints, Copied With Tasteless Servility After The Antigue; The Soul Is Left Out, And None Of The Parts Are Tied Together By What May Properly Be Termed Character.

My Reign Is Not Yet Over... You Live, And My Power Is Complete. Follow Me; I Seek The Everlasting Ices Of The North, Where You Will Feel The Misery Of Cold And Frost To Which I Am Impassive. You Will Find Near This Place, If You Follow Not Too Tardily, A Dead Hare; Eat And Be Refreshed. Come On, My Enemy; We Have Yet To Wrestle For Our Lives; But Many Hard And Miserable Hours Must You Endure Until That Period Shall Arrive.

I Am Very Averse To Bringing Myself Forward In Print, But As My Account Will Only Appear As An Appendage To A Former Production, And As It Will Be Confined To Such Topics As Have Connection With My Authorship Alone, I Can Hardly Accuse Myself Of A Personal Intrusion.

My Own Mind Began To Grow, Watchful With Anxoius Thoughts.

All Judges Had Rather That Ten Innocent Should Suffer Than That One Guilty Should Escape.

It Is With Considerable Difficulty That I Remember The Original Era Of My Being

All Men Hate The Wretched; How, Then, Must I Be Hated, Who Am Miserable Beyond All Living Things! Yet You, My Creator, Detest And Spurn Me, Thy Creature, To Whom Thou Are Bound By Ties Only Dissoluble By The Annihilation Of One Of Us.

My Person Was Hideous And My Stature Gigantic. What Did This Mean? Who Was I? What Was I? Whence Did I Come? What Was My Destination? These Questions Continually Recurred, But I Was Unable To Solve Them.

Beware; For I Am Fearless, And Therefore Powerful.

I Beheld The Wretch-the Miserable Monster Whom I Had Created.

You Seek For Knowledge And Wisdom As I Once Did; And I Ardently Hope That The Gratification Of Your Wishes May Not Be A Serpent To Sting You, As Mine Has Been.

You Will Rejoice To Hear That No Disaster Has Accompanied The Commencement Of An Enterprise Which You Have Regarded With Such Evil Forebodings.

I Am Malicious Because I Am Miserable

My Dreams Were All My Own; I Accounted For Them To Nobody; They Were My Refuge When Annoyed - My Dearest Pleasure When Free.

To Examine The Causes Of Life, We Must First Have Recourse To Death.

I Leave A Sad And Bitter World; And If You Remember Me, And Think Of Me As Of One Unjustly Condemned, I Am Resigned To The Fate Awaiting Me.

None But Those Who Have Experienced Them Can Conceive Of The Enticements Of Science.

Oh! Stars And Clouds And Winds, Ye Are All About To Mock Me; If Ye Really Pity Me, Crush Sensation And Memory; Let Me Become As Nought; But If Not, Depart, Depart, And Leave Me In Darkness.

I Am Not A Person Of Opinions Because I Feel The Counter Arguments Too Strongly.

Look Forward To Future Years, If Not With Eager Anticipation, Yet With A Calm Reliance Upon The Power Of Good, Wholly Remote From Despair.

Thus Strangely Are Our Souls Constructed, And By Slight Ligaments Are We Bound To Prosperity And Ruin.

In Other Studies You Go As Far As Other Have Gone Before You, And There Is Nothing More To Know; But In A Scientific Pursuit There Is Continual Food For Discovery And Wonder.

...once I Falsely Hoped To Meet The Beings Who, Pardoning My Outward Form, Would Love Me For The Excellent Qualities Which I Was Capable Of Unfolding.

Live, And Be Happy, And Make Others So.

Did You Not Call This A Glorious Expedition? And Wherefore Was It Glorious? Not Because The Way Was Smooth And Placid As A Southern Sea, But Because It Was Full Of Dangers And Terror, Because At Every New Incident Your Fortitude Was To Be Called Forth And Your Courage Exhibited, Because Danger And Death Surrounded It, And These You Were Brave To Overcome. For This Was It A Glorious , For This Was It An Honorable Undertaking

My Candle Was Nearly Burnt Out, When, By The Glimmer Of The Half-extinguished Light, I Saw The Dull Yellow Eye Of The Creature Open.

Allow Me Now To Return To The Cottagers, Whose Story Excited In Me Such Various Feelings Of Indignation, Delight, And Wonder, But Which All Terminated In Additional Love And Reverence For My Protectors (for So I Loved, In An Innocent, Half Painful Self-deceit, To Call Them).

When Falsehood Can Look So Like The Truth, Who Can Assure Themselves Of Certain Happiness?

Nothing Is So Painful To The Human Mind As A Great And Sudden Change. The Sun Might Shine, Or The Clouds Might Lour: But Nothing Could Appear To Me As It Had Done The Day Before.

How Dreadful It Is, To Emerge From The Oblivion Of Slumber, And To Receive As A Good Morrow The Mute Wailing Of One's Own Hapless Heart - To Return From The Land Of Deceptive Dreams To The Heavy Knowledge Of Unchanged Disaster!

From My Birth I Have Aspired Like The Eagle - But Unlike The Eagle, My Wings Have Failed. . . . Congratulate Me Then That I Have Found A Fitting Scope For My Powers.

My Spirit Will Sleep In Peace; Or If It Thinks, It Will Not Surely Think Thus. Farewell.

Polluted By Crimes, And Torn By The Bitterest Remorse, Where Can I Find Rest But In Death?

Solitude Becomes A Sort Of Tangible Enemy, The More Dangerous, Because It Dwells Within The Citadel Itself.

There Is Something So Different In Venice From Any Other Place In The World, That You Leave At Once All Accustomed Habits And Everyday Sights To Enter An Enchanted Garden.

But Success Shall Crown My Endeavours. Wherefore Not? Thus Far I Have Gone, Tracking A Secure Way Over The Pathless Seas: The Very Stars Themselves Being Witnesses And Testimonies Of My Triumph. Why Not Still Proceed Over The Untamed Yet Obedient Element? What Can Stop The Determined Heart And Resolved Will Of Man?

Of What A Strange Nature Is Knowledge! It Clings To A Mind When It Has Once Seized On It Like A Lichen On A Rock." - Frankenstein P115

The Moon Gazed On My Midnight Labours, While, With Unrelaxed And Breathless Eagerness, I Pursued Nature To Her Hiding Places.

If Our Impulses Were Confined To Hunger, Thirst, And Desire, We Might Be Nearly Free; But Now We Are Moved By Every Wind That Blows And A Chance Word Or Scene That That Word May Convey To Us.

Invention, It Must Be Humbly Admitted, Does Not Consist In Creating Out Of A Void, But Out Of Chaos; The Materials Must In The First Place Be Afforded; It Can Give Form To Dark, Shapeless Substances, But Cannot Bring Into Being The Substance Itself.

I Felt Emotions Of Gentleness And Pleasure, That Had Long Appeared Dead, Revive Within Me. Half Surprised By The Novelty Of These Sensations, I Allowed Myself To Be Borne Away By Them, And Forgetting My Solitude And Deformity, Dared To Be Happy.

The World To Me Was A Secret, Which I Desired To Discover; To Her It Was A Vacancy, Which She Sought To People With Imaginations Of Her Own.

The Agony Of My Feelings Allowed Me No Respite; No Incident Occurred From Which My Rage And Misery Could Not Extract Its Food.

Hateful Day When I Received Life!' I Exclaimed In Agony. 'accursed Creator! Why Did You Form A Monster So Hideous That Even You Turned From Me In Disgust? God, In Pity, Made Man Beautiful And Alluring, After His Own Image; But My Form Is A Filthy Type Of Yours, More Horrid Even From The Very Resemlance. Satan Had His Companions, Fellow-devils, To Admire And Encourage Him; But I Am Solitary And Abhorred.' - Frankenstein

Her Countenance Was All Expression; Her Eyes Were Not Dark But Impenetrably Deep; You Seemed To Discover Space After Space In Their Intellectual Glance.

Poetry, And The Principle Of Self, Of Which Money Is The Visible Incarnation, Are The God And The Mammon Of The World.

The World Was To Me A Secret Which I Desired To Devine.

Nothing Is So Painful To The Human Mind As A Great And Sudden Change.

My Father Was Not Scientific, And I Was Left To Struggle With A Child's Blindness, Added To A Student's Thirst For Knowledge.

I See By Your Eagerness, And The Wonder And Hope Which Your Eyes Express, My Friend, That You Expect To Be In Formed Of The Secret With Which I Am Acquainted. That Cannot Be.

Ah! It Is Well For The Unfortunate To Be Resigned, But For The Guilty There Is No Peace.

Unhappy Man! Do You Share My Maddness? Have You Drunk Also Of The Intoxicating Draught? Hear Me; Let Me Reveal My Tale, And You Will Dash The Cup From Your Lips!

Listen To Me, Frankenstein. You Accuse Me Of Murder; And Yet You Would, With A Satisfied Conscience, Destroy Your Own Creature. Oh, Praise The Eternal Justice Of Man!

So Much Has Been Done, Exclaimed The Soul Of Frankenstein - More, Far More, Will I Achieve; Treading In The Steps Already Marked, I Will Pioneer A New Way, Explore Unknown Powers, And Unfold To The World The Deepest Mysteries Of Creation.

Even Where The Affections Are Not Strongly Moved By Any Superior Excellence, The Companions Of Our Childhood Always Possess A Certain Power Over Our Minds Which Hardly Any Later Friend Can Obtain. They Know Our Infantine Dispositions, Which, However They May Be Afterwards Modified, Are Never Eradicated; And They Can Judge Of Our Actions With More Certain Conclusions As To The Integrity Of Our Motives.

Life Is Obstinate And Clings Closest Where It Is Most Hated.

The Labours Of Men Of Genius, However Erroneously Directed, Scarcely Ever Fail In Ultimately Turning To The Solid Advantage Of Mankind.

For A Moment My Soul Was Elevated From Its Debasing And Miserable Fears To Which These Sights Were The Monuments And The Remembrances. For An Instant I Dared To Shake Off My Chains, And Look Around Me With A Free And Lofty Spirit; But The Iron Had Eaten Into My Flesh, And I Sank Again, Trembling And Hopeless, Into My Miserable Self.

One As Deformed And Horrible As Myself, Could Not Deny Herself To Me. My Companion Must Be Of The Same Species, And Have The Same Defects... With Whom I Can Live In The Interchange Of Those Sympathies Necessary For My Being.

Oh! Be Men, Or Be More Than Men. Be Steady To Your Purposes And Firm As A Rock. This Ice Is Not Made Of Such Stuff As Your Hearts May Be; It Is Mutable And Cannot Withstand You If You Say That It Shall Not. Do Not Return To Your Families With The Stigma Of Disgrace Marked On Your Brows. Return As Heroes Who Have Fought And Conquered, And Who Know Not What It Is To Turn Their Backs On The Foe.

He Is Dead Who Called Me Into Being, And When I Shall Be No More The Very Remembrance Of Us Both Will Speedily Vanish.

A Mind Of Moderate Capacity Which Closely Pursues One Study Must Infallibly Arrive At Great Proficiency In That Study.

I Required Kindness And Sympathy, But I Did Not Believe Myself Utterly Unworthy Of It.

Ennui, The Demon, Waited At The Threshold Of His Noiseless Refuge, And Drove Away The Stirring Hopes And Enlivening Expectations, Which Form The Better Part Of Life.

Teach Him To Think For Himself? Oh, My God, Teach Him Rather To Think Like Other People!

Everything Must Have A Beginning ... And That Beginning Must Be Linked To Something That Went Before.

Our Faults Are Apt To Assume Giant And Exaggerated Forms To Our Eyes In Youth.

And The Violet Lay Dead While The Odour Flew On The Wings Of The Wind O'er The Waters Blue.

Oh! Grief Is Fantastic; It Weaves A Web On Which To Trace The History Of Its Woe From Every Form And Change Around; It Incorporates Itself With All Living Nature; It Finds Sustenance In Every Object; As Light, It Fills All Things, And, Like Light, It Gives Its Own Colors To All.

Sorrow Only Increased With Knowledge.

...if I See But One Smile On Your Lips When We Meet, Occasioned By This Or Any Other Exertion Of Mine, I Shall Need No Other Happiness.

Others Happiness

I Also Became A Poet, And For One Year Lived In A Paradise Of My Own Creation; I Imagined That I Also Might Obtain A Niche In The Temple Where The Names Of Homer And Shakespeare Are Consecrated.

The Sentiment Of Immediate Loss In Some Sort Decayed, While That Of Utter, Irremediable Loneliness Grew On Me With Time.

After Days And Nights Of Incredible Labor And Fatigue, I Succeeded In Discovering The Cause Of Generation And Life. Nay, More, I Became Myself Capable Of Bestowing Animation Upon Lifeless Matter.

My Heart Was Fashioned To Be Susceptible Of Love And Sympathy, And When Wrenched By Misery To Vice And Hatred, It Did Not Endure The Violence Of The Change Without Torture Such As You Cannot Even Imagine.

I, A Miserable Wretch, Haunted By A Curse That Shut Up Every Avenue To Enjoyment.

At The Age Of Twenty Six I Am In The Condition Of An Aged Person - All My Old Friends Are Gone... & My Heart Fails When I Think By How Few Ties I Hold To The World.

I Cherished Hope, It Is True, But It Vanished When My Person Reflected . . .

Devil, Do You Dare Approach Me? And Do You Not Fear The Fierce Vengeance Of My Arm Wreaked On Your Miserable Head?

My Education Was Neglected, Yet I Was Passionately Fond Of Reading.

Why Did I Not Die? More Miserable Than Man Ever Was Before, Why Did I Not Sink Into Forgetfulness And Rest? Death Snatches Away Many Blooming Children, The Only Hopes Of Their Doting Parents: How Many Brides And Youthful Lovers Have Been One Day In The Bloom Of Health And Hope, And The Next A Prey For Worms And The Decay Of The Tomb! Of What Materials Was I Made, That I Could Thus Resist So Many Shocks, Which, Like The Turning Of The Wheel, Continually Renewed The Torture? But I Was Doomed To Live.

It May...be Judged Indecent In Me To Come Forward On This Occasion; But When I See A Fellow-creature About To Perish Through The Cowardice Of Her Pretended Friends, I Wish To Be Allowed To Speak, That I May Say What I Know Of Her Character.

We Never Do What We Wish When We Wish It, And When We Desire A Thing Earnestly, And It Does Arrive, That Or We Are Changed, So That We Slide From The Summit Of Our Wishes And Find Ourselves Where We Were.

The Whole Series Of My Life Appeared To Me As A Dream; I Sometimes Doubted If Indeed It Were All True, For It Never Presented Itself To My Mind With The Force Of Reality.

If You Will Comply With My Conditions, I Will Leave Them And You At Peace; But If You Refuse, I Will Glut The Maw Of Death, Until It Be Satiated With The Blood Of Your Remaining Friends.

There Is Love In Me The Likes Of Which You've Never Seen. There Is Rage In Me The Likes Of Which Should Never Escape. If I Am Not Satisfied Int He One, I Will Indulge The Other.

Every Where I See Bliss, From Which I Alone Am Irrevocably Excluded.

Our Feelings Probably Are Not Less Strong At Fifty Than They Were Ten Or Fifteen Years Before; But They Have Changed Their Objects, And Dwell On Far Different Prospects. At Five-and-thirty A Man Thinks Of What His Own Existence Is; When The Maturity Of Age Has Grown Into Its Autumn, He Is Wrapt Up In That Of Others. The Loss Of Wife Or Child Then Becomes More Deplorable, As Being Impossible To Repair; For No Fresh Connection Can Give Us Back The Companion Of Our Earlier Years, Nor A "new-sprung Race" Compensate For That, Whose Career We Hoped To See Run.

The Guilty Are Allowed, By Human Laws, Bloody As They Are, To Speak In Their Own Defence Before They Are Condemned.

If The Study To Which You Apply Yourself Has A Tendency To Weaken Your Affections And To Destroy Your Taste For Those Simple Pleasures In Which No Alloy Can Possibly Mix, Then That Study Is Certainly Unlawful, That Is To Say, Not Befitting The Human Mind.

I Do Know That For The Sympathy Of One Living Being, I Would Make Peace With All. I Have Love In Me The Likes Of Which You Can Scarcely Imagine And Rage The Likes Of Which You Would Not Believe. If I Cannot Satisfy The One, I Will Indulge The Other.

It Was The Secrets Of Heaven And Earth That I Desired To Learn.

Once A King ... It Was Impossible, Without Risk Of Life, To Sink To A Private Station.

Curiosity, Earnest Research To Learn The Hidden Laws Of Nature, Gladness Akin To Rapture, As They Unfolded To Me, Are Among The Earliest Sensations I Can Remember.

I Feel Exquisite Pleasure In Dwelling On The Recollections Of Childhood, Before Misfortune Had Tainted My Mind, And Changed Its Bright Visions Of Extensive Usefulness Into Gloomy And Narrow Reflections Upon Self.

His Conversation Was Marked By Its Happy Abundance.

Evil Thenceforth Became My Good.

A Truce To Philosophy!—life Is Before Me, And I Rush Into Possession. Hope, Glory, Love, And Blameless Ambition Are My Guides, And My Soul Knows No Dread. What Has Been, Though Sweet, Is Gone; The Present Is Good Only Because It Is About To Change, And The To Come Is All My Own.

It Was Very Different When The Masters Of Science Sought Immortality And Power; Such Views, Although Futile, Were Grand: But Now The Scene Was Changed. The Ambition Of The Inquirer Seemed To Limit Itself To The Annihilation Of Those Visions On Which My Interest In Science Was Chiefly Founded. I Was Required To Exchange Chimeras Of Boundless Grandeur For Realities Of Little Worth.

Invention Consists In The Capacity Of Seizing On The Capabilities Of A Subject, And In The Power Of Moulding And Fashioning Ideas Suggested To It.

Even The Eternal Skies Weep, I Thought; Is There Any Shame Then, That Mortal Man Should Spend Himself In Tears?

What Terrified Me Will Terrify Others; And I Need Only Describe The Spectre Which Had Haunted My Midnight Pillow.

When I Step Into The Batter's Box, The Fans, The Noise, The Cheers, They All Disappear. For That Moment, The World Is Just A Battle Between Me And The Pitcher. And More Than Anything, I Want To Win.

But I Am A Blasted Tree; The Bolt Has Entered My Soul; And I Felt Then That I Should Survive To Exhibit What I Shall Soon Cease To Be - A Miserable Spectacle Of Wrecked Humanity, Pitiable To Others And Intolerable To Myself.

Satan Has His Companions, Fellow-devils, To Admire And Encourage Him; But I Am Solitary And Detested.

What Is There So Fearful As The Expectation Of Evil Tidings Delayed? ... Misery Is A More Welcome Visitant When She Comes In Her Darkest Guise And Wraps Us In Perpetual Black, For Then The Heart No Longer Sickens With Disappointed Hope.

I Am Alone And Miserable. Only Someone As Ugly As I Am Could Love Me.

There Is Something At Work In My Soul Which I Do Not Understand. I Am Practically Industrious - Painstaking, A Workman To Execute With Perseverance And Labour - But Besides This There Is A Love For The Marvellous, A Belief In The Marvellous, Intertwined In All My Projects, Which Hurries Me Out Of The Common Pathways Of Men, Even To The Wild Sea And Unvisited Regions I Am About To Explore.

Till Society Is Very Differently Constituted, Parents, I Fear, Will Still Insist On Being Obeyed Because They Will Be Obeyed, And Constantly Endeavor To Settle That Power On A Divine Right Which Will Not Bear The Investigation Of Reason.

I Shall Commit My Thoughts To Paper, It Is True; But That Is A Poor Medium For The Communication Of Feeling. I Desire The Company Of A Man Who Could Sympathize With Me, Whose Eyes Would Reply To Mine.

In My Joy I Thrust My Hand Into The Live Embers, But Quickly Drew It Out With A Cry Of Pain. How Strange, I Thought That The Same Cause Should Produce Such Opposite Effects.

With How Many Things Are We On The Brink Of Becoming Acquainted, If Cowardice Or Carelessness Did Not Restrain Our Inquiries.

The Fallen Angel Becomes A Malignant Devil. Yet Even That Enemy Of God And Man Had Friends And Associates In His Desolation; I Am Alone.

I Saw -- With Shut Eyes, But Acute Mental Vision -- I Saw The Pale Student Of Unhallowed Arts Kneeling Beside The Thing He Had Put Together. I Saw The Hideous Phantasm Of A Man Stretched Out, And Then, On The Working Of Some Powerful Engine, Show Signs Of Life, And Stir With An Uneasy, Half-vital Motion.

Marriage Is Usually Considered The Grave, And Not The Cradle Of Love.

I Collected The Instruments Of Life Around Me, That I Might Infuse A Spark Of Being Into The Lifeless Thing That Lay At My Feet. It Was Already One In The Morning; The Rain Pattered Dismally Against The Panes, And My Candle Was Nearly Burnt Out, When, By The Glimmer Of The Half-extinguished Light, I Saw The Dull Yellow Eye Of The Creature Open; It Breathed Hard, And A Convulsive Motion Agitated Its Limbs.

My Dreams Were At Once More Fantastic And Agreeable Than My Writings.

I Expected This Reception. All Men Hate The Wretched; How, Then, Must I Be Hated, Who Am Miserable Beyond All Living Things! Yet You, My Creator, Detest And Spurn Me, Thy Creature, To Whom Thou Art Bound By Ties Only Dissoluble By The Annihilation Of One Of Us. You Purpose To Kill Me. How Dare You Sport Thus With Life? Do Your Duty Towards Me, And I Will Do Mine Towards You And The Rest Of Mankind. If You Will Comply With My Conditions, I Will Leave Them And You At Peace; But If You Refuse, I Will Glut The Maw Of Death, Until It Be Satiated With The Blood Of Your Remaining Friends.

We Could Almost Believe That We Are Destined By Providence To An Unsettled Position On The Globe, So Invariably Is A Love Of Change Implanted In The Young. It Seems As If The Eternal Lawgiver Intended That, At A Certain Age, Man Should Leave Father, Mother, And The Dwelling Of His Infancy, To Seek His Fortunes Over The Wide World.

But He Found That A Traveller's Life Is One That Includes Much Pain Amidst Its Enjoyments. His Feelings Are For Ever On The Stretch; And When He Begins To Sink Into Repose, He Finds Himself Obliged To Quit That On Which He Rests In Pleasure For Something New, Which Again Engages His Attention, And Which Also He Forsakes For Other Novelties.

Precious Attribute Of Woe-worn Humanity! That Can Snatch Ecstatic Emotion, Even From Under The Very Share And Harrow, That Ruthlessly Ploughs Up And Lays Waste Every Hope.

The Day Of My Departure At Length Arrived. Clerval Spent The Last Evening With Us. He Had Endeavoured To Persuade His Father To Permit Him To Accompany Me And To Become My Fellow Student, But In Vain. His Father Was A Narrow-minded Trader, And Saw Idleness And Ruin In The Aspirations And Ambition Of His Son. Henry Deeply Felt The Misfortune Of Being Debarred From A Liberal Education. He Said Little, But When He Spoke I Read In His Kindling Eye And In His Animated Glance A Restrained But Firm Resolve Not To Be Chained To The Miserable Details Of Commerce.

The Modern Masters Promise Very Little

From My Infancy I Was Imbued With High Hopes And A Lofty Ambition.

I Could Not Understand Why Men Who Knew All About Good And Evil Could Hate And Kill Each Other.

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