I would believe an encyclopedia
This question refers to the story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates.
For the most part, Connie is a typical teenager of her time in this story. We learn that Connie is worried about the things that most teenagers worry about. She is concerned about being beautiful, and well-liked by boys. However, there is some individuality to Connie as well. We learn that she is a lot more vain than most people, and she takes enormous pleasure in her beauty. We also learn that Connie is dishonest, and she adopts different attitudes and personalities at home and elsewhere. The combination of these characteristics make Connie an individual, three-dimensional character.
The correct answer is "the desire of wise men".
In her play "Frankenstein" (1823), Mary Shelley uses different syntactic strategies in order to put emphasis on certain information. For example, she could have written something like this: "within my grasp is the study and desire of the wisest men...".
Instead, she chose to present the information in a rhetorical way. She introduced the "wh" word "what" opening the window for the reader to question himself what is the meaning of "what"?
What is THAT THING that had been the study and desire of wisest men since the creation of the world? What did they want to know?
