Which sentence in this excerpt from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein suggests that Frankensteln was distant as a young boy? We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. Ineed not say that wE were strangers to any species of
disunion or of dispute. 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 ardour, 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 serlous 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 campagne on 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 school-fellows 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 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 Roncesvalles, 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.