1 I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise.
2 Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration.
3 The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very silent and appears uneasy when anyone except myself enters his cabin.
4 Having conquered the violence of his feelings, he appeared to despise himself for being the slave of passion; and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, he led me again to converse concerning myself personally.
5 It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few.
6 I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them.
7 No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself.
8 I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.
9 I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature.
10 In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.
11 She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself.
12 I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections.
13 I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were "old familiar faces," but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers.
14 There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a natural talent.
15 I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology.