Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens, and gave me a sensation of pleasure. I started up, and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees.* … - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Yet some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these rugged bosoms.

About nine o'clock this morning the King passed by my window, moving silently along excepting now and then a few strokes on the drum, which rendered the stillness more awful through empty streets... I can scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow insensibly from my eyes, when I saw Louis, sitting with more dignity than I expected from his character, in a hackney coach, going to meet death where so many of his race have triumphed... I have been alone ever since, and though my mind is calm, I cannot dismiss the lively images that have filled my imagination all the day. Nay, do not smile, but pity me; for once or twice, lifting my eyes from the paper, I have seen eyes glare through a glass door opposite my chair, and bloody hands shook at me... I wish I had even kept the cat with me! I want to see something alive; death, in so many frightful shapes, has taken hold of my fancy. I am going to bed, and for the first time in my life I cannot put out the candle.

Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?