V.—­Walton’s Letter, continued

A week has passed away while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed.

The only joy that Frankenstein can now know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and death.

September 12

I am returning to England.  I have lost my hopes of utility and glory.  September 9 the ice began to move, and we were in the most imminent peril.  I had promised the sailors that should a passage open to the south, I would not continue my voyage, but would instantly direct my course southward.  On the 11th a breeze sprung from the west, and the passage towards the south became perfectly free.  Frankenstein bade me farewell when he heard my decision, and died pressing my hand.

At midnight I heard the sound of a hoarse human voice in the cabin where the remains of Frankenstein were lying.  I entered, and there, over the body, hung a form gigantic, but uncouth and distorted, and with a face of appalling hideousness.

The monster uttered wild and incoherent self-reproaches.  “He is dead who called me into being,” he cried, “and the remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.  Soon I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt.”

He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel, and was borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.

* * * * *

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Arcadia

Sir Philip Sidney, the finest type of gentleman of Elizabethan days, was born on November 30, 1554, at Penshurst, Kent, the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord-Deputy in Ireland, and grandson, on his mother’s side, of the Duke of Northumberland, who was beheaded for complicity in the Lady Jane Grey conspiracy.  Education at Oxford, travel abroad, diplomatic service, a wise interest in literature, and a singular graciousness of character made Sidney “a full man.”  He was regarded, at home and abroad, as the ideal gentleman of his time, and a heroic death, at the siege of Zutphen, on October 2, 1586, enhanced his fame.  His body was brought home for a national funeral in old St. Paul’s.  Sidney’s claims as a writer are based on both prose—­“Arcadia” and “An Apologie for Poetrie”—­and verse—­“Astrophel and Stella.”  The elaborate and artificial romance “Arcadia” was written for his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, probably between 1578-80.  It was left incomplete, and was not published until four years after his death.  It has been described as forming the earliest model for the art of prose.  In our epitome we have followed the central thread of a story which has innumerable episodic extensions.

I.—­Lost and Found