I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like
myself or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much
exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give
life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man. The materials at
present within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an
undertaking; but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed. I
prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my operations might be
incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect: yet, when I
considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and
mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least
lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the
magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its
impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation
of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great
hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to
make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet
in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this
determination, and having spent some months in successfully collecting
and arranging my materials, I began. No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like
a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared
to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a
torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as
its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their
being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so
completely as I should deserve their’s. Pursuing these reflections, I
thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might
in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where
death had apparently devoted the body to corruption. These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with
unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person
had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of
certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or
the next hour might realize. One secret which I alone possessed was the
hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight
labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued
nature to her hiding places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret
toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured
the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble,
and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless, and almost
frantic impulse, urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or
sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance,
that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural
stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits. I
collected bones from charnel houses; and disturbed, with profane
fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary
chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all
the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of
filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in
attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the
slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human
nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by
an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a
conclusion. The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in
one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow
a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage:
but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same
feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to
forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not
seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them; and I well
remembered the words of my father: “I know that while you are pleased
with yourself, you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear
regularly from you. You must pardon me, if I regard any interruption in
your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally
neglected.”

I knew well therefore what would be my father’s feelings; but I could
not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which
had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I wished, as it were,
to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the
great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be
completed. I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect
to vice, or faultiness on my part; but I am now convinced that he was
justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful
mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his
tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an
exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a
tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those
simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is
certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If
this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit
whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic
affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Cæsar would have spared his
country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the
empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed. But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my
tale; and your looks remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach in his letters; and only took notice of my
silence by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer, passed away during my labours; but I did not
watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always
yielded me supreme delight, so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a
close; and now every day shewed me more plainly how well I had
succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared
rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other
unwholesome trade, than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a
most painful degree; a disease that I regretted the more because I had
hitherto enjoyed most excellent health, and had always boasted of the
firmness of my nerves.