, 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 titlepage of my book, and said
