The Creature has been repeating this adjective (and the noun "benevolence") in seeming
insistence on the unquestionable virtues of the cottagers. Now, the intrusion of the
ensuing phrase ("I persuaded myself") and a next sentence in the form of a question
artfully raises the doubts his narrative has suspended. The entire paragraph, indeed,
evokes a litany of the high ideals of Enlightenment virtue gleaned by the Creature
from his reading and quietly interrogates their efficacy for "a wretched outcast."