his own interest in facticity with Elizabeth's (and Henry Clerval's) delight in the
imagination (I:1:9). However much he may be inflating the record here, the reader
cannot but be aware of the ambivalence about the nature of the imagination expressed
in these lines. That Victor once "trod heaven in [his] thoughts" cannot mitigate the
hellish misery to which he has now sunk, nor even at that earlier point in his remembrance
could it guarantee that the outcome of such an introverted elation would have an essential
value. The imagination, in this analysis, might be necessary for great achievement,
but by itself it is by no means sufficient, being merely an instrument, and, as such,
easily capable of indulging a self-absorbed solipsism.