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Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I

desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your

birth."

A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was

wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold;

but presently he calmed himself and proceeded-

"I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me, for you

do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess. If any being

felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a

hundred and a hundredfold; for that one creature's sake I would

make peace with the whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of

bliss that cannot be realised. What I ask of you is reasonable

and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous

as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can

receive, and it shall content me. It is true, we shall be

monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we

shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be

happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now

feel. Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude

towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the

sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my request!"