Frankenstein

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 sympathise 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