"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney’s Ruins of Empires. I should not have understood the purport of this book, had not Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history, and a view of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth. - P95
95 *Ruins of Empires: Constantin François Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, Les Ruines, ou meditation sur les révolutions des empires (Paris, 1791; English trans., 1792), a powerful polemic on the government of ancient and modern empires, and particularly on the role of religion in sustaining them. Volney‘s Ruins remained a force in English radicalism throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. The Eastern style and range of reference to which Felix alludes arises from Volney‘s experience as a scholarly travel-writer in the Middle East; this dimension gives the Creature a world rather than a European perspective. - P257
103 *Paradise Lost... Werter. Milton‘s Paradise Lost, 1667; Plutarch‘s Parallel Lives (c. AD 100); Johann von Goethe‘s Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), three books presumably intended to complement the political and historical sweep of Volney through their focus on individuals and their concern with morality, both public and private. - P257
I was dependent on none, and related to none. ‘The path of my departure was free;’ and there was none to lament my annihilation. 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. - P102
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. - P102
"But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. - P102
‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Cursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God in pity made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of your’s, more horrid from its very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.’ - P102
Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. - P103
I beheld my person reflected in water, or my shadow in the moon-shine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade. - P103
But it was all a dream: no Eve soothed my sorrows, or shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator; but where was mine? he had abandoned me, and, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him. - P103
"The winter advanced, and an entire revolution of the seasons had taken place since I awoke into life. - P103
‘I am a traveller in want of a little rest; you would greatly oblige me, if you would allow me to remain a few minutes before the fire.’ - P104
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