My tale was not one to announce publicly; its astounding horror would be looked upon as madness by the vulgar. Did any one indeed exist, except I, the creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced him, in the existence of the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance which I had let loose upon the world?

How strange, I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects!

It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct.

I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds. This was indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it.

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.

These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?

The injustice of his sentence was very flagrant; all Paris was indignant; and it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation.

This lady died, but her lessons were indelibly impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem, allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements, ill-suited to the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue.

Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect.

Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was.