rom
human society. Amid the magnificent scenery of the Valley of
Chamounix he appears before his creator, and tells the story of
his wretched life, pleading: "Everywhere I see bliss from which I
alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery
made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."

He describes how his physical ugliness repels human beings, who
fail to realise his benevolent intentions. A father snatches from
his arms the child he has rescued from death; the virtuous
family, whom he admires and would fain serve, flee affrighted
from his presence. To educate the monster, so that his thoughts
and emotions may become articulate, and, incidentally, to
accentuate his isolation from society, Mrs. Shelley inserts a
complicated story about an Arabian girl, Sofie, whose lover
teaches her to read from Plutarch's _Lives_, Volney's _Ruins of
Empire, The Sorrows of Werther_, and _Paradise Lost_. The monster
overhears the lessons, and ponders on this unique library, but,
as he pleads his own cause the more eloquently because he knows
Satan's passionate outbursts of defiance and self-pity, who would
cavil at the method by which he is made to acquire his knowledge?
"The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their
branches above me; now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst
forth amidst the universal stillness. All save I were at rest or
in enjoyment. I, like the arch fiend, bore a hell within me." And
later, near the close of the book: "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," His fate reminds
us of that of _Alastor, the Spirit of Solitude_, who:

"Over the world wanders for ever
Lone as incarnate death."

After the long and moving recital of his woes, even the obdurate
Frankenstein cannot resist the justice of his demand for a
partner like himself. Yet when the student recoils with horror
from his half-accomplished task and sees the creature maliciously
peering through the window, our hatred leaps to life once more
and burns fiercely as the monster adds to his crimes the murder
of Clerval, Frankenstein's dearest friend, and of Elizabeth on
her wedding night. We follow with shuddering anticipation the
long pursuit of the monster, expectant of a last, fearful
encounter which shall decide the fate of the demon and his maker.
Amid the region of eternal ice, Frankenstein cat