Frankenstein

affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed, and so many lights
thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects, that I found
in it a never-ending source of speculation and astonishment. The gentle
and domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and
feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded
well with my experience among my protectors, and with the wants which
were for ever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a more
divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character contained
no pretension, but it sunk deep. The disquisitions upon death and
suicide were calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to
enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions
of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely understanding
it.

"As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and
condition. I found myself similar, yet at the same time strangely unlike
to the beings concerning whom I read, and to whose conversation I was a
listener. I sympathised with, and partly understood them, but I was
unformed in mind; I was dependent on none, and related to none. 'The