Frankenstein

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 schoolfellows 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 its 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, rough 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 beside
myself. I have described myself as always having been embued
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, anatomise, 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 fulfilment 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 ribands 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 envelope 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.

Chapter 3

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