Страница 58 из 483

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 theirs. 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.