Frankenstein

“These won­der­ful nar­ra­tions in­spired me with strange feel­ings. Was man, in­deed, at once so power­ful, so vir­tu­ous, and mag­ni­fi­cent, yet so vi­cious and base? He ap­peared at one time a mere scion of the evil prin­ciple, and at an­other, as all that can be con­ceived of noble and god­like. To be a great and vir­tu­ous man ap­peared the highest hon­our that can be­fall a sens­it­ive be­ing; to be base and vi­cious, as many on re­cord have been, ap­peared the low­est de­grad­a­tion, a con­di­tion more ab­ject than that of the blind mole or harm­less worm. For a long time I could not con­ceive how one man could go forth to murder his fel­low, or even why there were laws and gov­ern­ments; but when I heard de­tails of vice and blood­shed, my won­der ceased, and I turned away with dis­gust and loath­ing.

I learned that the pos­ses­sions most es­teemed by your fel­low-creatures were, high and un­sul­lied des­cent united with riches. A man might be re­spec­ted with only one of these ad­vant­ages; but, without either, he was con­sidered, ex­cept in very rare in­stances, as a vag­a­bond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! 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. I was more agile than they, and could sub­sist upon coarser diet; I bore the ex­tremes of heat and cold with less in­jury to my frame; my stature far ex­ceeded theirs. When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. 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! It clings to the mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock. I wished some­times to shake off all thought and feel­ing; but I learned that there was but one means to over­come the sen­sa­tion of pain, and that was death—a state which I feared yet did not un­der­stand.

Even where the af­fec­tions are not strongly moved by any su­per­ior ex­cel­lence, the com­pan­ions of our child­hood al­ways pos­sess a cer­tain power over our minds, which hardly any later friend can ob­tain. They know our in­fant­ine dis­pos­i­tions, which, how­ever they may be af­ter­wards mod­i­fied, are never erad­ic­ated; and they can judge of our ac­tions with more cer­tain con­clu­sions as to the in­teg­rity of our motives.

“What do you mean? What do you de­mand of your cap­tain? Are you then so eas­ily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glor­i­ous ex­ped­i­tion? And where­fore was it glor­i­ous? Not be­cause the way was smooth and pla­cid as a south­ern sea, but be­cause it was full of dangers and ter­ror; be­cause, at every new in­cid­ent, your forti­tude was to be called forth, and your cour­age ex­hib­ited; be­cause danger and death sur­roun­ded it, and these you were to brave and over­come. For this was it a glor­i­ous, for this was it an hon­our­able un­der­tak­ing. You were here­after to be hailed as the be­ne­fact­ors of your spe­cies; your names ad­ored, as be­long­ing to brave men who en­countered death for hon­our, and the be­ne­fit of man­kind. And now, be­hold, with the first ima­gin­a­tion of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and ter­rific trial of your cour­age, you shrink away, and are con­tent to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to en­dure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly, and re­turned to their warm firesides. Why, that re­quires not this pre­par­a­tion; ye need not have come thus far, and dragged your cap­tain to the shame of a de­feat, merely to prove yourselves cow­ards. Oh! be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your pur­poses, and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mut­able, and can­not with­stand you, if you say that it shall not. Do not re­turn to your fam­il­ies with the stigma of dis­grace marked on your brows. Return, as her­oes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.”