Frankenstein | Page 5

vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable
did he consider my services. And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish
some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred
glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice
would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes
fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult
voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to
raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.
This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly quickly over the
snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and, in my opinion, far more agreeable than
that of an English stagecoach. The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs--a
dress which I have already adopted, for there is a great difference between walking the
deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise prevents the blood
from actually freezing in your veins. I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road
between St. Petersburgh and Archangel. I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or
three weeks; and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying
the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary among
those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing. I do not intend to sail until the month of
June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I
succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I
fail, you will see me again soon, or never. Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven
shower down blessings on you, and save me, that I may again and again testify my
gratitude for all your love and kindness.
Your affectionate brother, R. Walton

Letter 2
To Mrs. Saville, England
Archangel, 28th March, 17-
How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second
step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting
my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend
and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.
But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the
object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am
glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am
assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall
commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication
of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes
would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the
want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated
as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my
plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in
execution and too impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to me that I am
self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read
nothing but our Uncle Thomas' books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with
the celebrated poets of our own country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my
power to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the
necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native country.
Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen.
It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and
magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) KEEPING; and I greatly need a friend
who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for
me to endeavour to regulate my mind. Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly
find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and
seamen. Yet some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these
rugged bosoms.