He could not live under the horrors that were accumulated around him; an apoplectic fit was brought on, and in a few days he died in my arms. - P168
But liberty had been a useless gift to me had I not, as I awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge. As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their cause-the monster whom I had created, the miserable dæmon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my destruction. I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed head. - P168
‘Man,‘ I cried, ‘how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wis-dom! Cease; you know not what it is you say."
I broke from the house angry and disturbed, and retired to meditate on some other mode of action. - P170
My present situation was one in which all voluntary thoughtwas swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury; revengealone endowed me with strength and composure; it modelledmy feelings, and allowed me to be calculating and calm, at periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion. - P171
‘But soon,‘ he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm,
‘I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt.
Soon these burning miseries will be extinct.
I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing flames.
The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace;or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.‘ - P191
|