My dear Margaret,
Time moves painfully slowly here. I am surrounded by ice and snow, and every day seems longer than the last.
Still, I have made another important step toward my great expedition.
I have hired a ship and am now gathering my crew. The men I have chosen so far seem dependable, and they certainly have the courage needed for such a dangerous journey.
But there is one thing I still cannot find, and I am beginning to feel its absence more than ever.
I have no friend, Margaret.
When everything goes well and I achieve something important, there will be no one beside me who truly understands my happiness.
And if things go badly, there will be no one to encourage me when I lose heart.
I can always write down my thoughts, of course, but writing is a poor substitute for having someone beside you who truly understands what you feel.
What I want is a friend who can share my excitement, understand my fears, and look into my eyes and know what I mean without my having to explain everything.
You may think I am being overly romantic, dear sister, but I feel this loneliness deeply.
I wish I had someone who was both gentle and brave, someone intelligent and well educated, someone whose interests were close to mine.
Such a person could listen to my plans and tell me when I was wrong.
He might even correct the weaknesses of your foolish brother.
I am too eager when I begin something and too impatient when difficulties appear.
But there is another weakness that troubles me even more.
I have educated myself, and my education has been badly neglected.
For the first fourteen years of my life, I simply wandered about with little guidance and read almost nothing except Uncle Thomas’s books about voyages and exploration.
Then, when I was fourteen, I discovered the great poets of our country.
I became completely absorbed in them.
Only much later did I realize how much I had missed by knowing only my own language. By then, I was already too old to gain the full benefit of a proper education.
Now I am twenty-eight, yet in many ways I know less than an ordinary fifteen-year-old schoolboy.
I may have spent more time thinking than many educated people, and my dreams may be larger and more ambitious.
But my ideas are often uncontrolled.
They need what painters would call “finishing.”
I desperately need a sensible friend who would not laugh at my dreams, but who would care enough about me to help keep my mind balanced.
But perhaps these are nothing more than useless complaints.
I certainly will not find such a friend in the middle of the ocean.
And I doubt I will find one here in Archangel, among merchants and sailors.
Still, even these rough men sometimes show remarkable goodness.
My lieutenant, for example, is an incredibly brave and adventurous man.
He has a powerful desire for success—or, more accurately, for rising higher in his profession.
He is English, and although he carries many of the prejudices common among sailors and has had little formal education, he still possesses some of the finest qualities a man can have.
I first met him while serving on a whaling ship.
When I discovered that he was unemployed here in Archangel, I had no trouble persuading him to join my expedition.
My ship’s master is another remarkable man.
He has an excellent nature and is known throughout the ship for being gentle and fair with his crew.
His discipline is firm, but he never treats his sailors with unnecessary cruelty.
That quality was extremely important to me.
You know how much my quiet childhood and the years I spent under your gentle care shaped my character.
Because of that, I have always hated the harsh and brutal treatment that is so common aboard ships.
I have never believed that cruelty was necessary to command sailors.
So when I heard about a captain who was both kind-hearted and deeply respected by his crew, I felt extremely fortunate that I could hire him.
I first heard his story from a woman whose life had been made happy because of his kindness.
It sounds almost like something from a romance.
Years ago, he fell in love with a young Russian woman from a modest family.
After earning a large amount of prize money, he became financially secure enough to marry her, and her father agreed to the match.
But shortly before the wedding, he met the young woman alone.
She was crying.
She suddenly fell at his feet and begged him to forgive her.
“I love someone else,” she confessed, “but he is poor, and my father will never allow us to marry.”
My friend immediately tried to comfort her.
He asked her who the other man was.
As soon as he learned his name, he gave up his own claim to her.
He had already bought a farm with his prize money and planned to spend the rest of his life there.
Instead, he gave the entire farm to his rival.
He also gave the young man the rest of his money so that he could buy livestock and start a new life.
Then he went to the girl’s father himself and asked him to allow her to marry the man she truly loved.
But the old man refused.
He believed that he was now morally obligated to let his daughter marry my friend.
When my friend realized that the father would never change his mind, he left the country.
He did not return until he learned that the woman he loved had finally married the man she had chosen.
What a noble man, you might say.
And he truly is.
Unfortunately, he has almost no education.
He is extremely quiet, hardly speaking unless necessary, and he has a kind of careless ignorance that sometimes makes him seem less interesting than he really is.
Still, his actions tell me much more about his character than his education ever could.
But do not misunderstand me, Margaret.
Just because I sometimes complain about being lonely does not mean I have lost my determination.
My decision is as firm as ever.
The only thing stopping me now is the weather.
The winter has been terribly severe, but spring seems to be arriving early this year.
If conditions continue to improve, I may be able to set sail sooner than I expected.
I will not take unnecessary risks.
You know me well enough to trust that I will be careful whenever the lives of other people depend on my decisions.
I wish I could describe what I feel now that the expedition is so close.
There is a strange feeling inside me—a mixture of excitement and fear.
I am about to enter places no one has explored before.
I am going to the “land of mist and snow.”
But don’t worry, Margaret. I promise I will not kill any albatross.
So perhaps I will return safely instead of coming home as miserable and broken as the Ancient Mariner.
You will probably smile at that comparison.
But let me tell you something I have never told you before.
I believe my love for the sea, and especially my fascination with its dangers and mysteries, began when I read that famous poem.
Something inside me has always been drawn toward the unknown, though I cannot fully explain why.
I am a practical man when there is work to be done.
I can work patiently, endure hardship, and keep going until a difficult task is finished.
But there is another side of me.
I am fascinated by things that seem impossible.
I want to believe that there are still wonders in this world waiting to be discovered.
That feeling is woven into everything I do.
It keeps pulling me away from the ordinary path of life and toward the wild ocean and the unknown lands I am about to explore.
But enough about the expedition.
There is something much more important that I cannot stop thinking about.
Will I ever see you again?
Perhaps I will cross enormous oceans and eventually return by sailing around the southern tip of Africa or America.
I hope that will happen.
But I cannot honestly say that I expect it.
I am afraid to imagine the other possibility.
For now, please continue writing to me whenever you have the opportunity.
There may be moments during this journey when one of your letters will arrive just when I need it most.
Your words may be the very thing that keeps my spirits up.
I love you more dearly than I can say.
And if you never hear from me again, please remember me with affection.
Your loving brother,
Robert Walton