Frankenstein

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 sym­pa­thise 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. My lieu­tenant, for instance, is a man of won­der­ful courage and enter­prise; he is mad­ly desirous of glo­ry, or rather, to word my phrase more char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly, of advance­ment in his pro­fes­sion. He is an Eng­lish­man, and in the midst of nation­al and pro­fes­sion­al prej­u­dices, unsoft­ened by cul­ti­va­tion, retains some of the noblest endow­ments of human­i­ty. I first became acquaint­ed with him on board a whale ves­sel; find­ing that he was unem­ployed in this city, I eas­i­ly engaged him to assist in my enter­prise.

The mas­ter is a per­son of an excel­lent dis­po­si­tion and is remark­able in the ship for his gen­tle­ness and the mild­ness of his dis­ci­pline. This cir­cum­stance, added to his well-known integri­ty and daunt­less courage, made me very desirous to engage him. A youth passed in soli­tude, my best years spent under your gen­tle and fem­i­nine fos­ter­age, has so refined the ground­work of my char­ac­ter that I can­not over­come an intense dis­taste to the usu­al bru­tal­i­ty exer­cised on board ship: I have nev­er believed it to be nec­es­sary, and when I heard of a mariner equal­ly not­ed for his kind­li­ness of heart and the respect and obe­di­ence paid to him by his crew, I felt myself pecu­liar­ly for­tu­nate in being able to secure his ser­vices. I heard of him first in rather a roman­tic man­ner, from a lady who owes to him the hap­pi­ness of her life. This, briefly, is his sto­ry. Some years ago he loved a young Russ­ian lady of mod­er­ate for­tune, and hav­ing amassed a con­sid­er­able sum in prize-mon­ey, the father of the girl con­sent­ed to the match. He saw his mis­tress once before the des­tined cer­e­mo­ny; but she was bathed in tears, and throw­ing her­self at his feet, entreat­ed him to spare her, con­fess­ing at the same time that she loved anoth­er, but that he was poor, and that her father would nev­er con­sent to the union. My gen­er­ous friend reas­sured the sup­pli­ant, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instant­ly aban­doned his pur­suit. He had already bought a farm with his mon­ey, on which he had designed to pass the remain­der of his life; but he bestowed the whole on his rival, togeth­er with the remains of his prize-mon­ey to pur­chase stock, and then him­self solicit­ed the young woman’s father to con­sent to her mar­riage with her lover. But the old man decid­ed­ly refused, think­ing him­self bound in hon­our to my friend, who, when he found the father inex­orable, quit­ted his coun­try, nor returned until he heard that his for­mer mis­tress was mar­ried accord­ing to her incli­na­tions. “What a noble fel­low!” you will exclaim. He is so; but then he is whol­ly une­d­u­cat­ed: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of igno­rant care­less­ness attends him, which, while it ren­ders his con­duct the more aston­ish­ing, detracts from the inter­est and sym­pa­thy which oth­er­wise he would command.

Yet do not sup­pose, because I com­plain a lit­tle or because I can con­ceive a con­so­la­tion for my toils which I may nev­er know, that I am waver­ing in my res­o­lu­tions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voy­age is only now delayed until the weath­er shall per­mit my embarka­tion. The win­ter has been dread­ful­ly severe, but the spring promis­es well, and it is con­sid­ered as a remark­ably ear­ly sea­son, so that per­haps I may sail soon­er than I expect­ed. I shall do noth­ing rash­ly: you know me suf­fi­cient­ly to con­fide in my pru­dence and con­sid­er­ate­ness when­ev­er the safe­ty of oth­ers is com­mit­ted to my care.

I can­not describe to you my sen­sa­tions on the near prospect of my under­tak­ing. It is impos­si­ble to com­mu­ni­cate to you a con­cep­tion of the trem­bling sen­sa­tion, half plea­sur­able and half fear­ful, with which I am prepar­ing to depart. I am going to unex­plored regions, to “the land of mist and snow,” but I shall kill no alba­tross; there­fore do not be alarmed for my safe­ty or if I should come back to you as worn and woe­ful as the “Ancient Mariner.” You will smile at my allu­sion, but I will dis­close a secret. I have often attrib­uted my attach­ment to, my pas­sion­ate enthu­si­asm for, the dan­ger­ous mys­ter­ies of ocean to that pro­duc­tion of the most imag­i­na­tive of mod­ern poets. There is some­thing at work in my soul which I do not under­stand. I am prac­ti­cal­ly indus­tri­ous—painstak­ing, a work­man to exe­cute with per­se­ver­ance and labour—but besides this there is a love for the mar­vel­lous, a belief in the mar­vel­lous, inter­twined in all my projects, which hur­ries me out of the com­mon path­ways of men, even to the wild sea and unvis­it­ed regions I am about to explore.

But to return to dear­er con­sid­er­a­tions. Shall I meet you again, after hav­ing tra­versed immense seas, and returned by the most south­ern cape of Africa or Amer­i­ca? I dare not expect such suc­cess, yet I can­not bear to look on the reverse of the pic­ture. Con­tin­ue for the present to write to me by every oppor­tu­ni­ty: I may receive your let­ters on some occa­sions when I need them most to sup­port my spir­its. I love you very ten­der­ly. Remem­ber me with affec­tion, should you nev­er hear from me again.

Your affec­tion­ate broth­er, Robert Walton