The De Lacey Cottage Quotes — Frankenstein

Here, then, I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man.

I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions; but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification.

Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?

Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.

Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.

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.

If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched.

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.

And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man.

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