The Last Man

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Perdita, even in joy, fled to loneliness, and could go on from day to day, neither expressing her emotions, nor seeking a fellow-feeling in another mind. Nay, she could love and dwell with tenderness on the look and voice of her friend, while her demeanour expressed the coldest reserve. A sensation with her became a sentiment, and she never spoke until she had mingled her perceptions of outward objects with others which were the native growth of her own mind.

I was angry, impatient, miserable; my only happy hours were those during which I devised schemes of revenge; these were perfected in my forced solitude,

I continued my war against civilization, and yet entertained a wish to belong to it.

I was born for something greater than I was—and greater I would become; but greatness, at least to my distorted perceptions, was no necessary associate of goodness, and my wild thoughts were unchecked by moral considerations when they rioted in dreams of distinction.

Why, all his virtues are derived from his station only; because he is rich, he is called generous; because he is powerful, brave; because he is well served, he is affable.

I now began to be human. I was admitted within that sacred boundary which divides the intellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes animals.

His life was swallowed up in the existence of his beloved; and his heart beat only in unison with the pulsations that vivified hers.

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.

colour and sparkling eyes half revealed her

"There is a spirit, neither angel or devil, damned to limbo merely."

We are born; we choose neither our parents, nor our station; we are educated by others, or by the world's circumstance, and this cultivation, mingling with our innate disposition, is the soil in which our desires, passions, and motives grow."

Silence, little foolish thing," replied her mother, "and remember any one that mentions London is sent to Coventry for an hour."