(III:2:3) who retains this responsiveness to his natural surroundings. This is exemplified
in the previous chapter with his enthusiastic reaction to the Rhine valley (III:1:19).
His citing of both the beautiful and the sublime in this sentence may point the reader
less to Victor—who sees himself no longer able to respond fully to either—than to
a sense of inclusiveness, at once aesthetic and intellectual, that Mary Shelley seems
to be associating with a fully realized human being.