I Required Kindness And Sympathy, But I

But Her's Was The Misery Of Innocence, Which, Like A Cloud That Passes Over The Fair Moon, For A While Hides, But Cannot Tarnish Its Brightness.

It Was Very Different When The Masters Of Science Sought Immortality And Power; Such Views, Although Futile, Were Grand: But Now The Scene Was Changed. The Ambition Of The Inquirer Seemed To Limit Itself To The Annihilation Of Those Visions On Which My Interest In Science Was Chiefly Founded. I Was Required To Exchange Chimeras Of Boundless Grandeur For Realities Of Little Worth.

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.

I Saw -- With Shut Eyes, But Acute Mental Vision -- I Saw The Pale Student Of Unhallowed Arts Kneeling Beside The Thing He Had Put Together. I Saw The Hideous Phantasm Of A Man Stretched Out, And Then, On The Working Of Some Powerful Engine, Show Signs Of Life, And Stir With An Uneasy, Half-vital Motion.

Our Feelings Probably Are Not Less Strong At Fifty Than They Were Ten Or Fifteen Years Before; But They Have Changed Their Objects, And Dwell On Far Different Prospects. At Five-and-thirty A Man Thinks Of What His Own Existence Is; When The Maturity Of Age Has Grown Into Its Autumn, He Is Wrapt Up In That Of Others. The Loss Of Wife Or Child Then Becomes More Deplorable, As Being Impossible To Repair; For No Fresh Connection Can Give Us Back The Companion Of Our Earlier Years, Nor A "new-sprung Race" Compensate For That, Whose Career We Hoped To See Run.