Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and
of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning
my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was
capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and
devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No
guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to
mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot
believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled
with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of
goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant
devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates
in his desolation; I am alone.
"You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of
my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of
them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I
endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes,
I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and
craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned.
Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal,
when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who
drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate
the rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these
are virtuous and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the
abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled
on.
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