The Modern Prometheus modern design twist on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein | Page 10

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 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,