Frankenstein

the peasants; and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great
quantity of stones, and, laying them up, determined to throw them into
the sea that very night; and in the mean time I sat upon the beach,
employed in cleaning and arranging my chemical apparatus.

Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place
in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the dæmon. I had
before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair, as a thing that, with
whatever consequences, must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if a film
had been taken from before my eyes, and that I, for the first time, saw
clearly. The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur
to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not
reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in
my own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first made
would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness; and I
banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different
conclusion.

Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and I then, putting
my basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four miles from the