It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs...

The opening of Chapter V of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1831) by Mary W. Shelley (1797-1851)

 

Still photograph from the classic horror film Frankenstein (1931). Boris Karloff starred as the monster.