1428

  • a wish . . . across me In its context this is a striking revelation of Victor's deep, antisocial isolation,
    which contrasts ironically with the passionate need for community that drives the
    Creature and that has just been denied him, it would appear, forever.

    • 1427

  • the wind was contrary, and the stream of the river was too gentle In other words, the boat was encountering a north wind blowing against their further
    progress in that direction. By the time the Rhine reaches Cologne it has broadened
    considerably, abating the strong current it bears through the mountainous country
    further south.

    • 1426

  • Windsor

    Percy Shelley had been living in Windsor when he first met Mary, and it was to that
    region that they moved in 1817 to set up their household in Marlow. There Mary Shelley
    wrote the principal part of this novel. It is clear that in retrospect Windsor held
    a special place in Mary Shelley's memories: it is the site, for instance, in which
    she bases the early chapters of The Last Man (1826), with their idealized portraits
    of herself and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

    • 1425

  • the wind was unfavorable As would be natural in this environment, the storm descends from the west or northwest,
    picking up energy and precipitation in traversing Lake Geneva. To return to Geneva,
    Victor must drive squarely against the wind. With sails thus rendered useless, only
    manual exertion can prevail against the storm.

    • 1424

  • wild and enthusiastic imagination This encomium to Henry Clerval touches virtually all the thematic stops invoked by
    the novel in its representation of an ideal character, with terms already enveloped
    with multiple associations. Although any single one in excess might reveal a flaw
    productive of personal and social difficulties, in Clerval they reside in a perfect
    dynamic and dialectical balance. Where earlier critics associate Clerval with Percy
    Bysshe Shelley, this passage would be taken as a loving tribute to him.

    • 1423

  • Who feared that if I lost all trace I should despair and die The egotism of this statement is less strange than its underlying logic, which is
    that the closed circle of revenge enacts a kind of perverse sympathy in which the
    Creature sustains Victor so that he may continue on his mission to destroy his Creature.
    Throughout this final chapter of Victor's narration Mary Shelley is ingenious in following
    through on the implications of a life cast wholly in an ironic mode.

    • 1422

  • What his feelings were Mary Shelley at once reminds us that the Creature has feelings and that, except on
    the one occasion on Mont Blanc when he told his life story (II:3:1), they are wholly
    indecipherable to Victor, beset as he is with his calculations of revenge. She also
    prepares us for his unmediated reintroduction into the arena of the novel when in
    its last scene he comes aboard Walton's ship (III:Walton:33).

    • 1421

  • I should have wept to die It is true that the Creature's first experience of spring was joyful (II:4:19); but
    his memory is here playing tricks with him. He was created on a "dreary night of November"
    (I:4:1), and upon his escape into the woods near Ingolstadt he experienced extreme
    and uncomfortable cold. His reaction to his first day of life was, in fact, to weep
    (II:3:2).

    • 1420

  • Wearing away his time fruitlessly The 1818 text at this point stipulates that "nearly a year had elapsed" since this
    journey had begun from Geneva, a period the 1831 text identifies as "the latter end
    of September." (There is a month's disparity between the two texts on this point—see
    III:1 in 1818 and 1831). In her revision of the novel Mary Shelley, desiring to underpin
    the professional engagement of Henry Clerval, quietly presses home the irony that
    he, who once indolently indulged himself in imitating eastern poetry (see I:6:14)
    now has, in contrast to Victor, a firm sense of personal mission and a commitment
    to the future. Of course, in Ingolstadt at one point Victor was himself posssessed
    of both traits.

    • 1419

  • the watery, clouded eyes See I:4:2.
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