Frankenstein

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

We were brought up together; there was not quite a year

difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to

any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our

companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our

characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and

more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was

capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten

with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following

the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous

scenes which surrounded our Swiss home—the sublime shapes of the

mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the

silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine

summers—she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my

companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the

magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating

their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to

divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of

nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are

among the earliest sensations I can remember.

On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my

parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves

in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a

campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance

of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally

in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in

considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to

attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to

my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of

the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son

of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy.

He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He

was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed

heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and

knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into

masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of

Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous

train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the

hands of the infidels.

No human being could have passed a happier childhood than

myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness

and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our

lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all

the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other

families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot

was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but

by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish

pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all

things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of

languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various

states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven

and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward

substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the

mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were

directed to the metaphysical, or in it highest sense, the physical

secrets of the world.

Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral

relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes,

and the actions of men were his theme; and his hope and his dream

was to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as

the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species. The saintly

soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our

peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice,

the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless

and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and

attract; I might have become sullen in my study, through the ardour

of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of

her own gentleness. And Clerval—could aught ill entrench on the

noble spirit of Clerval? Yet he might not have been so perfectly

humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and

tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not

unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the

doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of

childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its

bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow

reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early

days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to

my after tale of misery, for when I would account to myself for the

birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it

arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten

sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent

which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.

Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I

desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which

led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years

of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon;

the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined

to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works

of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he

attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates

soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to

dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my

discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title

page of my book and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor,

do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash."

If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to

explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely

exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced

which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the

powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former

were real and practical, under such circumstances I should

certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my

imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to

my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas

would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin.

But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means

assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I

continued to read with the greatest avidity.

When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole

works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus

Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with

delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.

I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent

longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense

labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always

came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton

is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells

beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his

successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was

acquainted appeared even to my boy's apprehensions as tyros engaged

in the same pursuit.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was

acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher

knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but

her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might

dissect, anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final

cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly

unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments

that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of

nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper

and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I

became their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise

in the eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of

education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree,

self-taught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not

scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness,

added to a student's thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my

new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the

search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the

latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior

object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish

disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but

a violent death!

Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils

was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the

fulfillment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations

were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own

inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my

instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded

systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory

theories and floundering desperately in a very slough of

multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and

childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of

my ideas.

When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house

near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible

thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and

the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various

quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted,

watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the

door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and

beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so

soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and

nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next

morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was

not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons

of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of

electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural

philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered

on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject

of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing

to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius

Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my

imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men

disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as

if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long

engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those

caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early

youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural

history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation,

and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which

could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In

this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the

branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon

secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight

ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it

seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and

will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my

life—the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert

the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to

envelop me. Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity

and gladness of soul which followed the relinquishing of my ancient

and latterly tormenting studies. It was thus that I was to be

taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness with

their disregard.

It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was

ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had

decreed my utter and terrible destruction.