FrankensteinStudy Guide

“And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.”

“I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man.”

“I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.”

“I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.”

“But success _shall_ crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph.”

“What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?”

“Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!”

“I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have found a man who, before his spirit had been broken by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my heart.”

“It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.”

“My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge.”

“Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.”

“If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded... I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside.”

“My children, my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father.”

“Have you really spent your time in studying such nonsense? Every minute that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost.”

“After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.”