Frankenstein Audiobook | Chapter 4

[Music] hello and welcome back to my career in Chapter four Frankenstein from this day Natural Philosophy in particularly chemistry and the most comprehensive sense of the term became nearly my sole occupation I read with ardour those worked so full of genius and discrimination which modern inquires have written on these subjects I attended the lectures and cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science of the University and I found even in EM Kremp a very great deal of sound sense and real information combined in it it is true with a repulsive physiognomy and matters but not on the account and less valuable in my administrative ominous instructions were given in error frankness and a good nature that banished every idea of penetrate in a thousand ways he smoothed for me a path of knowledge and made the most abstruse inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension my application was at first fluctuating and uncertain it gained strength as I proceeded and soon became so ardent and eager that the Stars often disappeared in the light of morning which I was yet engaged in my laboratory as I appeared so closely it may be easily conceive that my progress was rapid my ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students and my proficiency that of the Masters professor cramp often asked me with a sly smile how cornelius agrippa went on Boston Waldman expressed the most heartfelt explanation of my progress two years passed in the manner in this manner during which I paid no visit to Geneva but was engaged heart and soul in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hope to make none but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science in other studies you go as far as others have gone before you and there's nothing more to know but in a scientific pursuit there is a continual food for discovery and wander a mine so moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that stud and I who continually sought the attainment of one subjective pursuit was Solis wrapped up in this improves so rapidly at the end of two years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical instruments which procured me great esteem and admiration at the University when I had arrived at this point it had become well equated with the theory and practice of natural philosophy is dependent on the lessons of the many of the professors of English at my residence there had been no longer conductive to my improvements I thought of returning to my friends in my native town when an incident happened that protracted my stay one of the phenomena which had / qulli attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame and indeed any animal in dude with life whence I often asked myself did the principle of life proceed there's a bold question in one which has never been considered as a mystery yet with how many things we are apart are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted if cowardice sir carelessness did not return our enquiries I resolved these circumstances in my mind and determined henceforth to apply myself more particularly to these branches of natural philosophy which regulate to physiology unless I had did animated most supernatural enthusiasm my application to this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable to examine the causes of life we must first have recourse to death I became acquainted with the science of anatomy but this was not sufficient I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body in my education my father taken the greatest precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors I do not ever remember having to have trembled at the tale of superstition nor to have feared the operation of a spirit darkness had no effect on my fancy and a charged churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life which from being the seat of beauty and strength had become food for the worm now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay enforced spend days and nights and vaults and Charnel houses my attention was fixed upon every object the most unsupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings Messala how the fine form of a man was degraded and wasted I beheld the corruption of death succeeded the blooming cheek of life I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain I paused examining me and analyzing the mint Wow unit a of causation is exemplified in the change from life to death and death to life until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me a light so brilliant and wondrous yet so simple that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it Illustrated I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret remember I am not recording this vision of a madman the Sun does not concern leash Einon the heavens that which I can now firm is true some miracle might have produced it yet the stages of discovery were distinct in problem after days and nights of indiscernible labor and fatigue I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life name or I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter in the astonishment which I had first experienced upon this discovery soon gave place to the lighten react sure delight in rapture after so much time has spent in painful labor to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils but this discovery was so great and so overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated and I've held only the result what had been the study in desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp not that like a magic scene it all opened upon me at once the information I'd obtained was of nature rather to direct my endeavor so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search and then to exhibit that object already accomplished I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life aided only by the glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light I see your eagerness and wander and will hope with your eyes to express my friend that you expect to be informed of the secret which I am acquainted that cannot be listened patiently until the end of my story and now you will perceive why I am reserved upon that subject I will not lead you on and guarded and the ardent as I then was to your destruction and fallible misery learned for me if not by my precepts at last at least by my example how dangerous the acquire dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier the man is who believes his native town to be the world then he aspires to become greater than this nature will allow when I found so astonishingly a power placed within my hands I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it although I possessed the capacity for bestowing animation yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it with all its intricacies of fibers muscles and veins still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty in labour I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself or one of simpler organization but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me no depth to doubt my ability to give life to an animal's complex and wonderful as man the material at present within my command hardly appeared adequately to so arduous and undertaking by I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses my operations might be incessantly baffled and at last my work being perfect yet when I was considered the improvement which everyday takes place in science and mechanics I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at last lay the foundations of future success nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan there's any argument of its impractical a boy impracticability it was that these feelings that I began the creation of a human being as a minut nurse of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed I resolved contrary to my first intention to make the being of gigantic stature that is to say about eight feet in height and proportionally at large and proportionably large after having to form this determination and having spent some months and successfully collecting and arranging my materials I began no one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards like a hurricane and the first enthusiasm of success life and death appeared to me ideal bounds which I should first break through and pour a torrent of light into the dark world a new species would bless me as its creator and source many happy and excellent natures would owe me their there being to me no father could claim the gratitude as child so completely as I should deserve there's pursuing on these reflections I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter I might in process of time although I now found it impossible renew life were death had apparently devoted the body it's a corruption these thoughts supported my spirits while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour my cheek heed grown pale was studying my person had become a man ciated with confinement sometimes on the very brink of certainty I failed yet I still clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might release one secret wish I alone possessed was the hope to which I dedicated myself and the moon gazed on my midnight Labor's while with R unrelaxed and breathless eagerness I pursued the nature to her hiding places who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay my limbs now tremble in my eyes swim with the remembrance but then a restlessness and almost fanatic impulse urged me forward I seem to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit it was indeed but a passing trance and only made me feel with renewed acuteness so as soon as the unnatural stimulus ceased to operate I returned to my old habits I collected bones from the Charnel houses and distributed with profane fingers the tremendous secrets of the human frame in a solid edge on a solidarity chamber or rather cell at the top of the house and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery in staircase I kept my workshop of filthy creation my eyeballs were started starting from their sockets and attending to the details of my employment at a sec ting room and the slaughterhouse furnished many of them my materials and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation while still urged on by eagerness which perpetually increased I brought my work near to a conclusion the summer months passed while I was thus engaged heart and soul in one pursuit it was the most beautiful sensation our most beautiful season never did the fields bestow more plentiful harvest to the finds yield a more luxuriant vintage but my eyes worsen sensible to the charms of nature and the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent and whom I had not seen for so long a time I knew my silence disquieted them and I all well remember the words my father I know that while you are pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection and we shall hear regularly from you you must pardon me if I just if I regard any interruption of your correspondence as proof that your other duties are equally neglected I knew well therefore that what would be my father's feelings but I could not tear my thoughts from this employment loathsome in itself but which had taken an irresistible hold on my imagination I wished as it were to procrastinate and all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object which swallowed up every habit of my nature should be completed I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice or faultiness on my part and I'm now convinced that he was justified and content conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame a human being imperfection not always have preferred preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never allow passion or translator transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule if the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy alloy can be possibly mixed and that study is certainly unlawful that is to say not befitting the human mind if this rule were always observed if no man allowed my pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections grace had not been enslaved Caesar would have been spared this country America would have been discovered more gradually and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed but I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale and your looks remind me to proceed my father made no approach in his letters and only took notice of my silence by inquiring into the occupations more particularly than before winter spring and summer past during my Labor's but I'd not watched this blossom or other expanding leaves sights which before always yielded me supreme delight so deeply was i engrossed in my occupation the leaves of that year had withered before my work through near to a close and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded but my enthusiasm was checked but my anxiety and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines or any other unwholesome trade than to an artist occupied by his favorite employment every night I was oppressed by a slow fever and I became a nervous to a most painful degree the fall of a leaf startled me and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime you are sometimes I grew alarmed at the rack I had perceived that I had become the energy of my purpose alone sustain me my Labor's would soon end and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease and I promised myself both of these when my creation would be complete and that is the end of chapter 4 so this chapter is all about how Victor Frankenstein has become obsessed with creating this creature he decided I can make them I could he discovers animation in life he figures out how to where life comes from he figures out where in the human body where where the life is centered and he figures out how to create it and how to manipulate it and that is because he was like looking at dead bodies and maybe animals as well and so he goes to grave sites and he's like you know what I'm gonna create I'm gonna create my own I'm gonna create a race of people a race of beings and they're gonna think of me as their God I don't know why he thinks that that's kind of crazy but you know whatever so he does and so he starts digging up bodies and graves and he's like building a body in his attic and so he's working his way through building a body in his attic and it takes him over a year to do so and I don't know why they're not addressing the fact that human bodies deteriorate over time so it's not like you would last a full year if you pulled body parts out the body parts would the great ed we're just ignoring all the disgusting parts of people dying and so he's really meeting a person very very slowly he's figuring out how to reassemble a person he decides I'm gonna make it an eight foot tall person that's equally large and that's his that's his goal there and so he's working his way through assembling a body so he can animate it with life and that's his whole chapter and he realizes that he's ignoring everyone back home he's not sending letters he's not talking to his dad even said you need to send letters and talk otherwise we're gonna think you're neglecting not only us but also your schoolwork but anyways he continues to build this body and not communicate with anyone it takes him almost a full year if not more than a year to get to where he is right now and that's the end of that chapter there him him basically having assembled the body so that he can animate it with life and then he says I'll deal with all the feelings sick and being tired and being nervous he's like not that I'm committing any crimes which digging up dead bodies is definitely a crime anyways yeah that's it thanks for joining me as always drop comments questions down below and I'll see you in the next chapter bye [Music] you

Channel: Micah Reads

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Keywords: frankenstein, audiobook, Mary Shelley, shelly, mary, book, reading, out loud, help, summary, high quality, hd, hq, full, complete

Id: J-PdK8fhdBM

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019