with the science of anatomy, and often asked myself,
Whence did the principle of life proceed? I observed the natural decay
of the human body, and saw how the fine form of man was degraded and
wasted. I examined and analysed all the minutiae of causation in the
change from life to death and death to life, until from the midst of
this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me. I became dizzy with the
immensity of the prospect, and surprised that among so many men of
genius I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.

Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare
a frame for the reception of it remained a work of inconceivable
difficulty and labour. I collected bones from charnel houses, and the
dissecting room and the slaughter house furnished many of my materials.
Often my nature turned with loathing from my occupation, but the thought
that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter I might in process
of time renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to
corruption, supported my spirits.

In a solitary chamber at the top of the house I kept my workshop of
filthy creation. The summer months passed, but my eyes were insensible
to the charms of nature. Winter, spring, and summer passed away before
my work drew to a close, but now every day showed me how well I had
succeeded. But I had become a wreck, so engrossing was my occupation,
and nervous to a most painful degree. I shunned my fellow-creatures as
if I had been guilty of a crime.

_III.--Frankenstein's Creation_

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of
my toil. With an anxiety that amounted to agony, I collected the
instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into
the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. I saw the dull yellow eye of the
creature open; it breathed hard; and a convulsive motion agitated its
limbs.

How can I delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I
had endeavoured to form? His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of
muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and
flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but his watery eyes seemed
almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were
set.

I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing
life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and
health. But now that I had finished,