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Chapter one. I am by birth a Genovese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. Okay, so this man who's now telling his story to Walton is from Geneva, which is a city in Switzerland. My ancestors had been, for many years, counselors and syndics. Syndic is a government official, so his ancestors had served in the government. And my father had filled several public situations with honor and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country. A variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early. Nor was it until the decline of his life that he became a husband and the father of a family. As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them. So he's going to tell us about the circumstances of his father's marriage because he feels that this will illuminate his father's character. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a flourishing state was. Fell through numerous mischances into poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honorable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat. In these unfortunate circumstances, he bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in endeavoring to seek him out with the hope of persuading him to begin the world again and through his credit and assistance. Meaning he wants to help his friend financially so that he can go back to living publicly again. Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself and it was 10 months before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened to the house which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss. The Reuss is a river. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months and in the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a merchant's house. The interval was consequently spent in inaction. His grief only became more deep and rankling when he had leisure for reflection and at length. It took so fast hold of his mind that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness incapable of any exertion. His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness but she saw with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that there was no other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould and her courage rose to support her in her adversity. She procured plain work, meaning she took in sewing for money. She platted straw and by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life. Several months passed in this manner her father grew worse. Her time was more entirely occupied in attending him. His means of subsistence decreased and in the 10th month her father died in her arms leaving her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her and she knelt by Beaufort's coffin, weeping bitterly. When my father entered the chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl who committed herself to his care. And after the interment of his friend, he conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a relation. Two years after this event, Caroline became his wife. There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affections. There was a sense of justice in my father's upright mind which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. So he's saying that maybe his father had some other lover who turned out not to be such a good person. So now he's devoted to his wife, since he knows that she is a good person. There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age. For it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a desire to be the means of in some degree recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to shelter her as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener from every rough or wind, and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit had been shaken by what she had gone through. During the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage. My father had gradually relinquished all his public functions and immediately after their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy and the change of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders as a restorative for her weakened frame. From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me my mother's tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure, while regarding me are my first recollections. So the parents love each other and they dote on their child. I was their plaything and their idol, and something better, their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties toward me with this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both. It may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lessons of patience, of charity and of self control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. So he's saying he had a kind of idyllic childhood. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty. It was a necessity, a passion, remembering what she had suffered and how she had been relieved for her to act in her turn, the guardian angel to the afflicted. So, because his mother had once been poor, she now feels it's her duty to visit the poor and help them if she can. During one of their walks, a poor cot in the foldings of a veil attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. So they came upon a particularly poor family. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife hard working, bent down by care and labor, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark eyed, hearty little vagrants. This child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features. The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with these good people to nurse. They were better off then. So this nobleman's child was given to this poor woman to nurse, which was normal. That was a normal thing to do. You'd hire someone else who was nursing to nurse your baby. They had not been long married and their eldest child was but just born. The father of their charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy. One among the Schiavi Agnore Frimenti, who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country. So Schiavi Agnor Frimenti means slaves forever in a rage. And it was a revolutionary political group. He became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died, or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was confiscated. His child became an orphan and a beggar. She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark leaved brambles. So this child's father died or was imprisoned. The mother was already dead. So now this nobleman's daughter is being raised by this very poor family. When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub, A creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. So chamois is a kind of goat. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission, my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. So she wants to adopt this girl. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them. But it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest. And the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents house, my more than sister, the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures. Every one loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother said playfully, I have a pretty present for my victor. To morrow he shall have it. And when on the morrow he presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I with childish seriousness interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine. Mine to protect, love and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression, could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me. My more than sister since till death she was to be mine only. Chapter Two 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, meaning they never fought or disagreed. 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 ardor 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 campagna in Belrive, meaning a country house near a lake called 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 Roncesvald's 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, meaning his gratitude toward his parents for being good and loving parents caused him to love them even more. 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 the highest sense, the physical secrets of the world. So Victor wants to know what makes the whole world tick. Essentially. 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. He's asking, was there anything wrong at all with 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 it bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early years I also record those events which led by insensible steps to my aftertale 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. Natural philosophy is the study of nature and the cosmos, so it seeks to understand the rules and systems that govern the universe. I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. So he's going to tell us why he was so drawn to natural philosophy. When I was 13 years of age, we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thanon. 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. Cornelius Agrippa was a German Renaissance thinker. 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.
