I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.

marriage is usually considered the grave, and not the cradle of love.

My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.

. . . the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.

Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?