Frankenstein (1831 Edition)

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I desire the company of a man who could sympathise 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 have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!

I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created.

Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.

Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?

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.

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.

All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.

You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.