Mary Shelley

my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.

fore­bod­ings

un­der­tak­ing

sur­pass­ing

for noth­ing con­trib­utes so much to tran­quil­lise the mind as a steady pur­pose—a point on which the soul may fix its in­tel­lec­tual eye

The world was to me a secret which I de­sired to di­vine.

Thus strangely are our souls con­struc­ted, and by such slight lig­a­ments are we bound to prosper­ity or ruin.

shall not be sup­posed as ac­cord­ing the re­motest de­gree of ser­i­ous faith to such an ima­gin­a­tion;

d, how­ever im­possible as a phys­ical fact, af­fords a point of view to the ima­gin­a­tion for the de­lin­eat­ing of hu­man pas­sions more com­pre­hens­ive and com­mand­ing than any which the or­din­ary re­la­tions of ex­ist­ing events can yield.

These are my en­tice­ments, and they are suf­fi­cient to con­quer all fear of danger or death, and to in­duce me to com­mence this la­bor­i­ous voy­age with the joy a child feels when he em­barks in a little boat, with his hol­i­day mates, on an ex­ped­i­tion of dis­cov­ery up his nat­ive river.