Frankenstein
or, The Modern Prometheus
by Mary Shelley
(London, Vintage, 2016)
I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have scrupled to innovate upon their combinations.
Page 1.
The circumstance on which my story rests was suggested in casual conversation. It was commenced partly as a source of amusement.
Page 1.
This story was begun in the majestic region where the scene is principally laid.
Page 2.
I passed the summer of 1816 in the environs of Geneva. The season was cold and rainy, and in the evenings we crowded around a blazing wood fire and occasionally amused ourselves with some German stories of ghosts which happened to fall into hour hand.
Page 2.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Page 4.
A history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery compose the whole of our good Uncle Thomas’s library.
Page 4.
My father’s dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
Page 4.
My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.
Page 5
It is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas’s books of voyages.
Page 7.
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 fort 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. Page 10.
We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs.
Page 12.
One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I ought for the dominions I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race.
Page 16.
I doubt but that my tale conveys in its series internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is composed.
Page 19.
He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes.
Page 19.
While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.
Page 27.
My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the polities of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn. … my enquires were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.
Page 28.
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.
Page 29.
When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterward of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.
Page 30.
Here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple.
Page 31.
If my incantations were always unsuccessful I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors.
Page 31.
I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.
Page 38.
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.
Page 40.
The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.
Page 40.
“A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.”
Page 41.
None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.
Pages 42-43.
One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endured with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?
Page 43.
I revolved circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology.
Page 43.
To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body.
Page 43.
After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.
Page 44.
Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.
Page 45.
Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of fibers, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour.
Page 45.
I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic structure; that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionally large.
Page 46.
A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.
Page 46.
I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently the body to corruption.
Page 46.
My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement.
Page 46.
In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation: my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials.
Page 47.
I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed.
Page 48.
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.
Page 48.
If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
Page 48.
I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me.
Page 49.
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishments of my toils. … 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.
Page 50.
His limbs were in proportion, but I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! - Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxurieances only formed more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
Page 50.
I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.
Page 50.
But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.
Page 50.
I darted up towards my own room. My hand was already on the lock of the door before I recollected myself. I then paused, and cold shivering came over me. I threw the door forcibly open, as children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them on the other side; but nothing appeared. I stepped fearfully in: the apartment wad empty, and my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guest.
Page 54.
This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for several months.
Page 55.
The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him.
Page 55.
Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance and sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.
Page 58.
Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my misfortunes I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy.
Page 61.
I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently; I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic. stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom I had given life.
Page 70.
Two years had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life, and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not murdered my brother?
Pages 70-71.
All the kindness which her beauty might otherwise have excited was obliterated in the minds of the spectators by the imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have committed.
Page 76.
“I confessed, that I might obtain absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than all my other sins. The God of heaven forgive me! Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition. What could I do? In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie; and now only am I truly miserable.”
Page 82.
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 flows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.
Page 85.
I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings. Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe.
Page 85.
Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
Page 85.
“Is it not a duty to the survivors, that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty owed to yourself, for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society.”
Page 86.
I took the boat and passed many hours upon the water. … I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake that the waters might close over me and my calamities forever.
Page 86.
Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetuate some new wickedness.
Page 87.
There was always scope for fear so long as anything I loved remained behind.
Page 87.
When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?
Page 88.
Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings.
Page 93.
I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. … I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created.
Page 95.
“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, they creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.”
Page 95.
“How dare you sporty thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind.”
Page 95.
Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.
Page 96.
The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge.
Pages 96-97.
It is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage.
Page 97.
I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion. For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness.
Page 98.
”It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct.”
Page 99.
The light became more and more oppressive to me and, the heat wearying me as I walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade. This was the forest near Ingolstadt; and here I lay by the side of a brook resting from my fatigue, until I felt tormented by hunger and thirst. … I ate some berries which I found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst at the brook.
Page 99.
Before I had quitted your apartment, on a sensation of cold, I had covered myself with some clothes, but these were insufficient to secure me from the dews of night. I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pin invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept.
Pages 99-100.
No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was confused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness, innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me; the only object that I could distinguish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure.
Page 100.
During the night I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days.
Page 109.
When I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas!
Page 112.
I thought (foolish wretch!) that it might be in m power to restore happiness to these deserving people.
Page 113.
I looked upon them as superior beings who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. I formed in my imagination a thousand pictures of presenting myself to them and their reception of me. I imagined that they would be disgusted, until by my gentle demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and afterwards their love.
Page 113.
My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory; the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipation of joy.
Page 114.
My nocturnal rambles were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun, for I never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the same treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I had entered.
Pages 117-118.
While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight.
Page 118.
Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth?
Page 119.
Sorrow only increased with knowledge.
Page 119.
Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock.
Page 119.
But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and cresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I?
Page 120.
As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil; benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed.
Page 127.
I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written in the language the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter.
Page 127.
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 recur but I was unable to solve them.
Page 128.
Many tings I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas.
Page 128.
Perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations.
Pahe 129.
Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence.
Page 129.
Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.
Page 129.
Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made mad beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance.
Page 130.
I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues they would compassionate me and overlook my personal deformity.
Page 130.
I postponed this attempt for some months longer, for the importance attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I should fail.
Page 130.
Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as the frail image and that inconstant shade.
Page 131.
I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.
Page 131.
I was getter fitted by my conformation for the endurance of cold than heat. But my chief delights were the sight of the flowers, the birds, and all the gay apparel of summer.
Page 131.
My heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affection was the utmost limit of my ambition. … I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not believe myself unworthy of it.
Page 132.
The unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly beheld me. My voice, although harsh, had nothing terrible in it.
Page 132.
Do not despair4. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes.
Page 134.
When night came I quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood; and now, no longer restrained by the fear of discovery, I gave vent to my anguish in fearful howlings. I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging though the wood with a stag-like swiftness. … I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me, and find myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.
Page 136.
There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No; form that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.
Page 136.
The feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them, but allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death. … unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects.
Page 138.
I resolved to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated and despised, every country must be equally horrible.
Page 139.
I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life?
Page 139.
Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.
Page 140.
I travelled only at night, fearful of encountering the visage of a human being.
Page 140.
The nearer I approached to your habitation, the more deeply did I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart.
Page 140.
I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.
Pages 141-142.
All the joy was but a mockery which insulted my desolate state and made me feel more painfully that I was not made for he enjoyment of pleasure.
Page 142.
Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief.
Page 144.
I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must crate.
Pages 144-145.
You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.
Page 146.
I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind?
Page 146.
Tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me?
Page 146.
Shall I respect man when he condemns me?
Page 146.
Mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.
Page 147.
I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me, for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess.
Page 147.
What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; this gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. 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.
Page 147.
Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thin.
Page 147.
My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment.
Page 148.
I swear to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that with the companion you bestow I will quit the neighbourhood of man and dwell, as it may chance, in the most savage of places.
Page 148.
The love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal.
Page 149.
A creature who could exist in the ice caves of the glaciers and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with.
Page 149.
I listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroe on its way to consume me.
Page 150.
I took refuge in the most perfect solitude I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves silent and listless.
Page 152.
To England, therefore, I was bound, and it was understood that my union with Elizabeth should take place immediately on my return. My father’s age rendered him extremely averse to delay.
Page 155.
My mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labour, and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands.
Page 168.
As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew.
Page 170.
You are my creator, but I am your master!
Page 171.
I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.
Page 172.
I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle.
Page 173.
The remains of the half-finished creature whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being. … I reflected that I ought not to leave the relics of my work to excite the horror and suspicion of the peasants; and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great quantity of stones, and laying them up, determined to throw them into the sea that very night.
Pages 174-175.
How strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery.
Page 177.
For to me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.
Page 187.
It was necessary that I should return without delay to Geneva there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved; and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any chance led he to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous.
Page 188.
Ever since my recovery from the fever I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum, for it was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life.
Page 189.
Sleep did not afford me respite from thought and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me.
Page 189.
I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast. I checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret.
Page 191.
As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my hear, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes.
Page 192.
I resolved … that if my immediate union with my cousin would conduce either to hers or my father’s happiness, my adversary’s designs against my life should not retard it a single hour.
Page 194.
I took every precaution to defend my person in case the fiend should openly attack me. I carried pistols and a dagger constantly about me and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice, and by these means gained a greater degree of tranquility.
Page 197.
I had always experienced relief from mental torment in bodily exercise.
Page 203.
Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.
Page 203.
One by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left desolate.
Page 204.
My first resolution was to quit Geneva for every; my country which, when I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my adversity, became hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few jewels which had belonged to my mother, and departed. Page 208.
I have traversed a vast portion of the earth, and have endured all the hardships which travellers in desserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet.
Page 208.
Revenge kept me alive: I dared not die and leave my adversary in being.
Page 208.
The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to cast a shadow which was felt but not seen, around the head of the mourner.
Page 209.
“I call on you, spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work.”
Page 209.
I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish laugh. … “I am satisfied, miserable wretch! you have determined to live, and I am satisfied.”
Page 209.
Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace of him is should despair and die, left some mark to guide me. Page 210.
Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sunk under the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert that restored and inspirited me. The fare was, indeed, coarse, such as the peasants of the country ate; but I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me.
Page 210.
I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my path.
Page 211.
It was during sleep along that I could taste joy.
Page 211.
During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night; for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country.
Page 211.
Sometimes … he left marks in writing on the barks of the trees or cut in stone that guided me and instigated my fury.
Page 211.
Never will I give up my search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends.
Page 212.
The triumph of an enemy increased with the difficulty of my labours.
Page 212.
He is eloquent and persuasive; and once his words had even power over my heart; but trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice.
Page 216.
Sometimes I endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature’s formation; but on this point he was impenetrable.
Page 217.
Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.
Page 217.
If I were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught with extensive utility to my fellow creatures, then could I live to fulfil it. But such is not my destiny; I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I gave existence; then my lot on earth be fulfilled and I may die.
Page 220.
Frankenstein has daily declined in health; a feverish fire still glimmers in his eyes; but he is exhausted, and when suddenly roused to any exertion he speedily sinks again into apparent lifelessness.
Page 221.
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.
Page 222.
In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty; but there was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature.
Page 225.
The forms of the beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.
Page 225.
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.
Page 227.
When I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness; that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the indulgence of which I was forever barred, then impotent envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance.
Page 228.
Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion of my daemoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!
Page 228.
You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall.
Page 228.
It is not pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn from your power.
Page 228.
Once I falsely hoped to met with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent equalities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal.
Page 229.
While I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned.
Page 229.
You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.
Page 230.
I shall quit your vessel on the ice-raft which brought me thither and shall seek the most northern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I shall die.
Page 230.
I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames.
Page 231.
He sprung from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.
Page 231.