Frankenstein's Bride (23 page)

Frankenstein
or the modern prometheus

Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

LETTER
1
TO MRS. SAVILLE, ENGLAND
ST. PETERSBURGH, DEC. 11TH, 17—

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of
an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived
here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and
increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Peters-burgh,
I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my
nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze,
which has traveled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me
a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams
become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is
the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the
region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its
broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendor. There—
for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—
there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be
wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered
on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without
example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those
undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?
I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may
regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render
their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity
with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a
land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and
they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to
commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a
little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native
river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable
benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by
discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present
so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet,
which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.

These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter,
and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for
nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a
point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the
favorite dream of my early years. I have read with ardor the accounts of the
various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North
Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that
a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole
of our good Uncle Thomas's library. My education was neglected, yet I was
passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and
my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on
learning that my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me
to embark in a seafaring life.

These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose
effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for
one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might
obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are
consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore
the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin,
and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.

Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can,
even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise.
I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers
on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold,
famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common
sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the
theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval
adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.

Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and
acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud when my captain
offered me the second dignity in the 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 favorable period for traveling 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. Peters-burgh
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
endeavor 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's
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 endeavor 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 honor 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 labor—but besides this there is a
love for the marvelous, a belief in the marvelous, 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 opportu-nity:
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