Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Letter 1

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17--

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.  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