Frankenstein the Astonishment Which I

Frankenstein

The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in painful abour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.

In this passage the good doctor experiences a number of emotions that threaten to overwhelm him. He seemingly contends that it is not the daily toiling under which he labored that brings him such ecstasy, but rather the successful culmination of his endeavors that provide him with such a response. He has been so focused on the necessary step-by-step process that his entire being has become wrapped up in the tedious and minutely detailed 'discovery' of what has been the 'study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world'. The doctor has never quite believed that he would reach this point as he points out that he is like the Arabian who is aided by a 'seemingly ineffectual light'.