Victor tells how he and Elizabeth are brought up together as "there was not quite a year difference in our ages." He is serious and loud as a child, while Elizabeth has a more calm and subdued personality. The reader now sees a small glimpse of Victor's obsession with knowledge and learning. It is not unlike Mary Shelley's own lust for learning as a child and as the wife of Percy Shelley. Victor is the seeker of knowledge, "delighting in investigating their causes." He seeks answers to what occurs in nature and the physical world.
When Victor's parents return to Geneva to settle down, Victor is more solitary, doesn't like crowds, and finds himself alone at school. He befriends Henry Clerval, a Romantic character, who becomes his life-long pal. Henry is a writer and poet, a more creative person than the scientifically minded Victor. Henry is fascinated with the heroes of Roncesvalles, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and the knights of the Crusades.
We now begin to see Victor's personality type as sometimes "violent and my passions vehement." He dislikes learning languages, politics, and government and instead chooses to throw himself into the study of science, which he calls "the physical secrets of the world." While Elizabeth and Henry pursue the normal activities of children, Victor wants to learn all he can about the how's and why's of the world.
