me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot
upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?

"I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted
upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with
knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor
known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!

"Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it
has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to
shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one
means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death--a state
which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good
feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my
cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except
through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and
unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of
becoming one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the
animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me. The mild
exhortations of the old man and the lively conversation of the loved
Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!

"Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the
difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the
father doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the
older child, how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up
in the precious charge, how the mind of youth expanded and gained
knowledge, of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which
bind one human being to another in mutual bonds.

"But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my
infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if
they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I
distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I
then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being
resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The
question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.

"I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to
return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various
feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated
in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved,