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"When younger," said he, "I believed myself destined for some

great enterprise. My feelings are profound, but I possessed a

coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements.

This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me when others

would have been oppressed, for I deemed it criminal to throw away

in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow

creatures. When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less

a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I

could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors. But

this thought, which supported me in the commencement of my

career, now serves only to plunge me lower in the dust. All my

speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who

aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. My

imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application

were intense; by the union of these qualities I conceived the

idea and executed the creation of a man.