Frankenstein

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy;

I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine.

You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.

I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.

Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit, that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.

The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover;

But the latter obtained my undivided attention: wealth was an inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!

I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world.”

I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance.

It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed for ever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard.

I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure, I was now alone.