Clerval, who had watched my countenance as I read this letter, was surprised to observe the despair that succeeded to the joy I at first expressed on receiving news from my friends. I threw the letter on the table, and covered my face with my hands.

"My dear Frankenstein," exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me weep with bitterness, "are you always to be unhappy? My dear friend, what has happened?"

I motioned to him to take up the letter, while I walked up and down the room in the extremest agitation. Tears also gushed from the eyes of Clerval, as he read the account of my misfortune.

"I can offer you no consolation, my friend," said he; "your disaster is irreparable. What do you intend to do?"

"To go instantly to Geneva: come with me, Henry, to order the horses."

During our walk, Clerval endeavoured to [raise my spirits. He did not do this by common topics of consolation, but by exhibiting the truest] <say a few words of consolation; he could only express his heartfelt> sympathy. "Poor William!" said he, "[that] dear <lovely> child; he now sleeps with his angel [mother. His] <mother! Who that had seen him bright and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his untimely loss! To die so miserably; to feel the murderer's grasp! How much more a murderer, that could destroy such radiance innocence! Poor little fellow! one only consolation have we; his> friends mourn and weep, but he is at [rest: he does not now feel the murderer's grasp; a] <rest. The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end for ever. A> sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be a {MS subject} [fit] subject for pity; [the survivors are the greatest sufferers, and for them time is the only consolation. Those maxims of the Stoics, that death was no evil, and that the mind of man ought to be superior to despair on the eternal absence of a beloved object, ought not to be urged. Even Cato wept over the dead body of his brother] <we must reserve that for his miserable survivors>."