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. When I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate in my joy. If I am assailed by disappointment, no-one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I desire the company of one who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, 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 a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own.
Robert Walton. Ship's Captain.
Frankenstein Mary Shelley
