1. 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.

2. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge.

Explain the two metaphors in these two quotes (what is being compared?). What do they reveal about Victor's early studies?