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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.
This quote near the start of Robert Walton’s first letter to his sister establishes him as a man whose ambition to make a great discovery outweighs his fears of the desolate and dangerous Arctic region. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Character: Robert Walton and in Quotes by Setting: The Arctic Ice.
What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?
In one of the novel’s most significant lines, Walton refers to the North Pole as “a country of eternal light.” Very little was known about the region at the time, and one common misconception was that the sun never sets there. For ambitious and optimistic people like Walton, the discovery and hope symbolized by eternal light of the Arctic North offset the obvious dangers of the elements and the environment. You can read more about this quote in Famous Quotes Explained and in Quotes by Symbol: Light and Fire. There is also an explanation of the quote within the context of larger paragraph in which it appears in Quotes by Setting: The Arctic Ice (the second quote from Letter 1),
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.
Later in his first letter to his sister from the midst of his dangerous voyage to the North Pole, Walton writes these words. Here the novel continues with the introduction to important concepts such as personal ambition and the quest for knowledge, foreshadowing the story Victor Frankenstein will come to tell about the dire consequences of each.
My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.
This comment by Robert Walton makes parallels between him and Victor Frankenstein even more clear. Both were born to privilege and may display a sense of entitlement from time to time as a result yet both find their sense of purpose in applying their wealth to the ambitious pursuit of discovery rather than to its lazy consumption. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Theme: Ambition.
