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Frankenstein
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Frankenstein
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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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
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Science FictionÂ
Letter 1
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17â
TO Mrs. Saville, England
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 Petersburgh, 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 travelled 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 splendour. Thereâfor with your
leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding
navigatorsâthere 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 purposeâa point on which the soul
may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the
favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour 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' 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 whaleâfishers 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 underâmate
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 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 fursâa 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
postâroad 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
whaleâfishing. 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
Â
Letter 2
Archangel, 28th March, 17â
To Mrs. Saville, England
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
selfâeducated: 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 twentyâeight 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 wellâknown 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 prizeâmoney, 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 prizeâmoney 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
industriousâpainstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and
labourâbut 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
Â
Letter 3
July 7th, 17â
To Mrs. Saville, England
My dear Sister,
I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safeâand well
advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a
merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel; more
fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many
years. I am, however, in good spirits: my men are bold and
apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that
continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards
which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We have already
reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of summer, and
although not so warm as in England, the southern gales, which blow
us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire to
attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not
expected.
No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure
in a letter. One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are
accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record,
and I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during
our voyage.
Adieu, my dear Margaret. Be assured that for my own sake, as
well as yours, I will not rashly encounter danger. I will be cool,
persevering, and prudent.
But success SHALL crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I
have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very
stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why
not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can
stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?
My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But I
must finish. Heaven bless my beloved sister!
R.W.
Letter 4
August 5th, 17â
To Mrs. Saville, England
So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession.
Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the seaâroom in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather.
About two o'clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice. This appearance excited our unqualified wonder. We were, as we believed, many hundred miles from any land; but this apparition seemed to denote that it was not, in reality, so distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by ice, it was impossible to follow his track, which we had observed with the greatest attention. About two hours after this occurrence we heard the ground sea, and before night the ice broke and freed our ship. We, however, lay to until the morning, fearing to encounter in the dark those large loose masses which float about after the breaking up of the ice. I profited of this time to rest for a few hours.
In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being within it whom the sailors were persuading to enter the vessel. He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a European. When I appeared on deck the master said, "Here is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish on the open sea."
On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a foreign accent. "Before I come on board your vessel," said he, "will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound?"
You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed to me from a man on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have supposed that my vessel would have been a resource which he would not have exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can afford. I replied, however, that we were on a voyage of discovery towards the northern pole.
Upon hearing this he appeared satisfied and consented to come on board. Good God! Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for his safety, your surprise would have been boundless. His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition. We attempted to carry him into the cabin, but as soon as he had quitted the fresh air he fainted. We accordingly brought him back to the deck and restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy and forcing him to swallow a small quantity. As soon as he showed signs of life we wrapped him up in blankets and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen stove. By slow degrees he recovered and ate a little soup, which restored him wonderfully.
Two days passed in this manner before he was able to speak, and I often feared that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding. When he had in some measure recovered, I removed him to my own cabin and attended on him as much as my duty would permit. I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But he is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him.
When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in so strange a vehicle.
His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom, and he replied, "To se...