Frankenstein Chapter 2. Excerpt By Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein recounts the influences that lead to his great experiment
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, "Aht Cornelius Agrippal 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 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.
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 deatht
Which line from the text explains the effect of the texts of Agrippa on the narrator? (5 points)
Ob
...the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm.
My father looked corelessly 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 trush."
the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much
greater power than the ancient...
d
When I returned home my first core was to procure the whole works of this outhor...