NOTES

my imagination was too exalted

The word "imagination" is similarly exalted by Percy Bysshe Shelley in the first paragraph of the Preface (I:Pref:1) he wrote for the first edition and, even moreso, by Mary Shelley in her Introduction (see 1831:I:Intro:3 and 1831:I:Intro:11) to the third edition. Yet, clearly the "doubt" that in these sentences is twice juxtaposed against this power is meant to deflate its pretensions to be an absolute good. As the novel proceeds, its questioning of the imagination will intensify.