Chapter 2 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks why the same world satisfies Elizabeth and leaves Victor hungry, and whether the hunger lies in Victor or in what he hunts for.

One reading

The difference is in Victor: from the start he was the more intense of the two, “more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge”, and no answer could fill him.

• 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.
• The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine.

Another reading

The difference is in what each one looks for: Elizabeth delights in what can be seen, while Victor wants causes that even the most learned philosopher cannot reach, so anyone with his aim would stay unsatisfied.

• While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes.
• 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.

Listen for

• Sets the two words side by side: Elizabeth “satisfied”, Victor “discontented and unsatisfied”.
• Weighs whether the hunger belongs to Victor or to the kind of knowledge he wants.
• Notices that the grown narrator chose to set his own hunger beside Elizabeth’s calm.

If stuck

• What does Elizabeth love in the mountains and seasons around their home?
• What does Victor say even the most learned philosopher could not know?
• Is Victor’s hunger a flaw in him, or what happens to anyone who wants hidden causes?

A strong answer A strong answer may find the difference in Victor himself: he calls himself the more intense of the two, “more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge”, and curiosity is among his earliest memories. Another reading looks at what each one wants: Elizabeth delights in what can be seen, while Victor wants causes that were “utterly unknown” even to the most learned philosopher, so his hunger may be built into his aim. The best answers weigh both, and ask whether anything could ever have satisfied him.

What it asks It asks the student to judge the dream the boy built on his masters’ promises, and so what the books found in him: a gift to the human race, or a hunger for his own glory.

One reading

Noble: he sets wealth aside and dreams of ending disease for everyone, a hope much like Clerval’s wish to do good.

• 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!
• 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.

Another reading

Proud: the word he reaches for is glory, and the same boy longs most eagerly to raise ghosts or devils, a wish for wonder and power more than for healing.

• The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought
• they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.

Listen for

• Notices that the boy names glory, not the cure itself, as the prize.
• Sets his dream beside Clerval’s hope to be among “the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species”.
• Weighs the raising of ghosts or devils against the banishing of disease.

If stuck

• What two things did the boy search for, and which one held his attention?
• What does Victor say about wealth, and what does he want instead?
• Can a wish to help others and a wish for glory live in one person?

A strong answer A strong answer weighs the dream’s aim against its reward. The aim is generous: to “banish disease from the human frame”, with wealth only “an inferior object”. But the sentence turns on “what glory would attend the discovery”, and the same boy “most eagerly sought” to raise ghosts or devils, a wish that serves wonder and power more than healing. Clerval also hopes for a name among the “benefactors of our species”, so the wish for fame is not Victor’s alone; the best answers say what, in this chapter, makes Victor’s version his own.

What it asks It asks why the boy kept faith with masters whose promises never came true, and whether that faith came from his hunger or from being left alone with the books.

One reading

The hunger needed them: they were the only men who claimed to have “penetrated deeper”, and to doubt them was to give up the secret he wanted most.

• But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more.
• 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.

Another reading

He had no one to check them: he was largely “self-taught”, his father “was not scientific”, and a boy alone with his books blames himself first.

• 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.

Listen for

• Notices how complete the trust is: their “word for all that they averred”, and every failure laid on the disciple.
• Weighs what the old masters promised against what the science of his day could give.
• Hears the grown man’s own verdict on the boy: “an ardent imagination and childish reasoning”.

If stuck

• What did the boy hope his masters would teach him to do?
• Who was there to tell him that Agrippa’s ideas were out of date?
• Is the boy’s faith a weakness, or a sign of how much he wanted what they promised?

A strong answer A strong answer might say the faith came from the hunger. The science of his day left him “discontented and unsatisfied”, and here were men “who had penetrated deeper and knew more”; to doubt them was to lose the only road to the secret he wanted. Another reading points to his situation: he was largely “self-taught”, his father “was not scientific”, and the man later says the boy was guided by “an ardent imagination and childish reasoning”. The best answers say how much of the faith was the boy’s nature and how much his being left alone with the books.

What it asks It asks how a theory the boy found new and astonishing could leave him sure that nothing can be known, when it might have sent him after the new science instead.

One reading

His faith was in the masters, not in the search: they had promised the secret itself, and the new theory, however astonishing, only showed that their promise was empty.

• It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known.
• I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple.

Another reading

His temper goes all or nothing: the same vehement passions that made him a devoted disciple make him a scornful one, and he flees to the one study that seems certain.

• My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement
• 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.

Listen for

• Sets the visitor’s science beside the modern science that had already left the boy unsatisfied, and asks whether it offered him a new road at all.
• Connects the turn to what the boy wanted from his masters all along.
• Names something in Victor’s temper that shows in how he turns, not only in where he turns.

If stuck

• What did the visitor explain, and what happened to Agrippa and the others in Victor’s eyes?
• Why does mathematics now seem worth his time?
• Did the boy love the search, or the masters who promised to end it?

A strong answer A strong answer might argue that the boy’s faith was in the masters rather than the search. They had promised the secret itself; the visitor’s theory, new and astonishing as it was, belonged to the modern science that had always left him unsatisfied, so once it threw the masters “greatly into the shade” it seemed “as if nothing would or could ever be known”. Another reading looks at Victor’s temper, “sometimes violent”, with passions “vehement”: he does nothing by halves, so the devoted disciple turns to “the greatest disdain” and flees to mathematics, which is “built upon secure foundations”. Either way a chance storm has turned him, and the best answers say what the way he turns shows about him.

What it asks It asks why the narrator explains one change both as a passing whim of youth and as the work of a guardian angel.

One reading

Hindsight: the boy felt only a whim, but the man, knowing how his story ends, reads it as a rescue that failed, so an accident becomes part of a plan.

• 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
• 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

Another reading

No conflict for Victor: an angel might well work through a whim, and the calm that followed is his sign that it was more than chance.

• Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies.
• Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin.

Listen for

• Notices the words “When I look back” and asks who supplies the second cause, the boy or the man.
• Weighs a cause with no meaning (a caprice) against a cause full of meaning (an angel).
• Connects the angel’s lost contest with Destiny to the way Victor reads small events.

If stuck

• What does Victor first say caused the change, and what does he say a few lines on?
• What feeling followed the change, and what does he say it taught him?
• Who decides that a whim was an angel’s work, the boy who felt it or the man who tells it?

A strong answer A strong answer notices that the two causes come from two moments. The change itself comes from “one of those caprices of the mind” that youth is subject to; the angel appears only “When I look back”, once the man knows how his story ends. One reading says hindsight turns a whim into a failed rescue, so that even an accident becomes part of a plan. Another says Victor sees no conflict, since an angel may work through a whim, and the “unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul” that followed is his proof. The best answers say what each cause lets Victor believe about the small things that turned his life.

What it asks It asks for a thesis on whether the later scene, in which a visitor’s explanation does topple the old masters, bears out Victor’s claim about what his father’s explanation would have done.

One reading

It supports him: once someone explains a newer science, the old masters fall at once, as Victor said they would have at thirteen, and his complaint that his father’s glance proved nothing gains force.

• All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination
• But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents

Another reading

It weakens him: he claimed a real explanation would have sent him back to his former studies “with greater ardour”, but when the masters fall he turns from natural science altogether, and he himself says only that it is “even possible” his ruin could have been avoided.

• by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies.
• It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin.

Listen for

• A thesis that tests both halves of Victor’s claim: throwing Agrippa aside, and going back to his former studies.
• The storm scene read as a test of the claim, not as a sign of what is coming.
• An objection drawn from the half of the comparison the thesis leaves out, then a revision that answers it.

If stuck

• What does Victor say his father should have explained, and what does he say would have followed?
• What did the visitor explain, and what became of Agrippa in Victor’s eyes?
• After the masters fell, did Victor go back to the science of his day, or somewhere else?

A strong answer A strong thesis might argue that the later scene supports Victor only by half. When the visitor explains his theory, the old masters are thrown “greatly into the shade”, as Victor said they would have been at thirteen, and his complaint that his father’s “cursory glance” proved nothing gains weight. The strongest objection is the claim’s second half: a real explanation was to send him back to his former studies “with greater ardour”, yet when the masters fall he turns from natural science altogether, and he grants only that it is “even possible” his ruin could have been avoided. A good revision might say that reasons can topple a master but cannot choose what the boy loves next, and ask how much weight one remark can then bear.

What it asks It asks for a thesis on why a man who longed to learn the laws of nature explains his own temper and his own ruin by laws too, and what that way of telling does for him.

One reading

It clears him: if a law in his temper and Destiny’s fixed laws decided everything, neither the boy nor the man could have chosen otherwise.

• Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.
• Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate

Another reading

It is the same hunger turned on himself: the boy who wanted the hidden causes of things now looks for the cause of his own life, and laws are the kind of cause he trusts.

• 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.
• but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn

Listen for

• A thesis about what the language of law does in Victor’s telling, not only a list of where it appears.
• Knows that “temperature” here means what we would call temperament.
• An objection from the chapter’s language of chance: “I chanced to find”, “an accident”, “by some fatality”, “caprices of the mind”.

If stuck

• Where in the chapter does Victor speak of a law or of laws?
• What did the boy want to learn about the world, and what does the man say turned his passions toward learning?
• If laws ruled Victor’s life, who would be to blame for his ruin?

A strong answer A strong thesis might argue that the language of law is Victor’s old hunger turned on himself. The boy wanted “the hidden laws of nature”; the man finds “some law” in his own temperament and ends with Destiny’s “immutable laws”, as if a life could be explained like a thunderstorm. The strongest objection is that the same chapter is full of chance: he “chanced to find” Agrippa, the storm was “an accident”, and the turn to mathematics a caprice. A good revision might say that Victor tells a life of accidents and then reads them as laws, and ask whether that reading clears him or only consoles him.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s big question: whether the road Victor traces to his ruin began with chance (the weather, a found book, a careless word) or with a hunger he carried from his earliest memories.

One reading

Chance set him on it: only bad weather kept the family at the inn, the book was found by chance, and a father’s careless glance left the boy to read on alone.

• 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.
• My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book

Another reading

It was in him all along: the hunger for hidden causes is among his earliest memories, and the same boy watches even a terrible storm “with curiosity and delight”.

• It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn
• I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature.
• I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight.

Listen for

• A thesis that explains how chance and the boy’s nature worked together, not one that only blames the father or only blames Victor.
• Evidence of both kinds: the weather, the book and the remark, and the boy’s own eager acts (“bounding with joy”, the whole works procured, the failed spells he blamed on himself).
• Attention to the man telling the story, who calls the same events accidents, an angel’s work and Destiny.
• An objection drawn from the chapter itself, then a revision that answers it.

If stuck

• What kept the family at the inn, and how did Victor come upon the book?
• What does Victor remember about himself from before Thonon?
• If the weather had been fine that day, what in the chapter suggests he would or would not have come to the same studies?

A strong answer A strong thesis might argue that chance chose the door but not the hunger that went through it. The weather, the found book and the father’s careless glance are accidents, and Victor is right that they shaped his road. But his longing for “the hidden laws of nature” is among his “earliest sensations”, and the boy who reads on “with the greatest avidity” is the same one who later watches a terrible storm “with curiosity and delight”. The strongest objection is that the only witness is the man telling the story, who reads his past from the far end of his ruin; a good revision might weigh the boy’s eager acts above the man’s pictures of being driven, and still leave open whether another door would have led to the same place.