Micah Webber’s Reviews > Frankenstein: Or The Modern Prometheus > Status Update

Of Victor, by Walton: “What a glorious creature must he have been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin! He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.”

She looked forward to our union with placid contentment, not unmingled with a little fear, which past misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared certain and tangible happiness might soon dissipate into an airy dream and leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret.
. . .I shut up, as well as I could, in my own heart the anxiety that preyed there…”

“I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.”

“Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned? I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat! Of what a strange nature is knowledge!

“The first of these sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth had visited her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles.”

“I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.”

“I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight…. I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak… and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared…. [W]e found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.”

“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 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.”

I’ve read the First Two Pages of Frankenstein!