I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. I read of men concerned in public affairs governing or massacring their species. The cottage of my protectors had been the only school in which I had studied human nature but this book developed new and mightier scenes of action. But I was perfectly unacquainted with towns, and large assemblages of men. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I learned from Werter’s imaginations despondency and gloom: but Plutarch taught me high thoughts he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. This book had a far different effect upon me from the Sorrows of Werter. “The volume of Plutarch’s Lives which I possessed, contained the histories of the first founders of the ancient republics. My person was hideous, and my stature gigantic: what did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.
Frankenstein chapter 7 questions free#
‘The path of my departure was free ’ and there was none to lament my annihilation. I sympathized with, and partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind I was dependent on none, and related to none. I found myself similar, yet at the same time strangely unlike the beings concerning whom I read, and to whose conversation I was a listener. “As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and condition. I did not pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely understanding it. The disquisitions upon death and suicide were calculated to fill me with wonder. But I thought Werter himself a more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined his character contained no pretension, but it sunk deep. The gentle and domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded well with my experience among my protectors, and with the wants which were for ever alive in my own bosom. In the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed, and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects, that I found in it a never-ending source of speculation and astonishment. They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstacy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. “I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations. Fortunately the books were written in the language the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. I eagerly seized the prize, and returned with it to my hovel. “One night, during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood, where I collected my own food, and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau, containing several articles of dress and some books.
But, in giving an account of the progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred in the beginning of the month of August of the same year. “As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed. I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire their virtues, and to deprecate the vices of mankind. “Such was the history of my beloved cottagers.
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