the awful and majestic in nature
The modern descriptive term for Victor's experience would be awesome.
Although he dwells on how satisfying is this kind of response to nature
(and in the third edition it is particularly accentuated), it is probably
so because of its reliable alterity from his own situation. In a few
paragraphs, with startling irony, he will have that dependability rudely
broken, and the sublime will come directly home to the human who,
thinking to master it, had fled from its tremendous power.
