Letter 2

To Mrs. Saville, England. Archangel, March twenty-eight, seventeen - . Time is seriously dragging here, surrounded by frost and snow! But, a second step is happening with my project. I’ve rented a ship and I'm getting my crew together.

The guys I've signed up so far seem solid - definitely brave and dependable.

But I'm craving something I’m yet to get, and losing it hits me hard. I don’t have a friend, Margaret! When I’m riding high on success, there's no one to share the vibe. And if I’m down in the dumps, no one's gonna lift me up.

I’ll write down my thoughts, sure, but that's not really how you connect with someone. I’m looking for someone to chill with - someone who gets me, someone whose eyes can talk back. You might think I’m being dramatic, sis, but I really feel the lack of a friend.

There's no one close by, someone both chill and brave, with a sharp mind and broad interests, someone who likes the same things I do to back my plans or give me a reality check. How much better off my poor brother would be with a friend like that!

I jump into things too fast and get frustrated too easily. But an even bigger bummer is that I’m self-taught: for the first fourteen years of my life, I basically ran wild and only read Uncle Thomas’s travel books.

I got into our country’s amazing poets later, but it was only after it was too late to really learn from them that I realized I needed to know more languages than just English. Now I’m twenty-eight and feel more clueless than most fifteen-year-olds in school.

I’ve thought a lot, and my daydreams are pretty epic, but they need work - like the painters say, they need "keeping. I seriously need a friend who’s smart enough not to think I’m totally out there and cares enough to help me get my head on straight.

Seriously, these are just pointless gripes. I'm not gonna find a friend out here on the ocean, or even in Archangel, surrounded by merchants and sailors. But even these tough guys have feelings, you know? My lieutenant, for example, is seriously brave and driven.

He's totally chasing glory - or, to put it another way, trying to level up his career. He’s English, and even with all the national and professional biases, he still has some of the best qualities a person can have. I met him on a whaling ship.

When I found he was jobless in the city, I easily got him to help with my plan.

The captain is a seriously chill dude, known around the ship for being super gentle and fair. Plus, everyone knows he's honest and brave - I really wanted him on board. I grew up pretty sheltered, spending my best years with you, and I just can’t stand the usual harshness on ships.

I never thought it was necessary, and when I heard about a captain known for his kindness and how much his crew respected him, I felt lucky to get him. I first heard about him in a kind of crazy story, from a lady who owes him her happiness.

Basically, he fell for a young Russian girl with a decent amount of money. He’s made a ton of cash from prizes, so her dad agreed to the wedding. He saw her one last time before the ceremony, but she was totally crying, throwing herself at his feet and begging him to let her go.

She confessed she loved someone else, but that guy was broke, and her dad would never allow it. My friend, being awesome, calmed her down and when he learned who she loved, he just dropped it.

He’s already bought a farm where he planned to live out his days, but he gave the whole thing to her boyfriend, plus all the leftover prize money to buy animals. Then, he actually asked the girl’s dad to let them get married!

The old man totally shut it down, feeling like he owed it to my friend. My friend, seeing his dad wouldn't budge, just dipped out of the country. He didn’t come back until he heard his ex was married - and happy, too. "Seriously, what a legend!" you’d probably say. He is, no doubt.

But he’s totally uneducated. Super quiet, like, a total Turk. And he’s got this kind of clueless vibe about him. It makes his actions even more wild, but it also kind of makes it harder to feel for him.

I'm not gonna say I'm not bummed a bit, or that I'm daydreaming about a break from all this work that might never happen. But seriously, my plans are set in stone - like, fate, you know? My trip's just on pause until the weather clears up.

This winter was brutal, but spring looks promising, and it's coming in early, so I might actually go sooner than I thought. I'm not gonna do anything crazy, though. You know me - you can trust my judgment, especially when other people are counting on me.

I can't even put into words how I'm feeling about this whole thing. It's like a mix of excitement and total nerves, getting ready to go. I’m heading to places no one’s really been, to "the land of mist and snow."

But don't worry, I'm not gonna be taking out any albatrosses, so you don't need to freak out about my safety or me coming back all worn out and gloomy like the "Ancient Mariner. You'll probably laugh at the reference, but I gotta tell you a secret.

I’m pretty sure that poem by one of the most imaginative writers ever is why I'm so drawn to the ocean’s mysteries and dangers. Something’s going on deep down inside me that I don't even get.

I'm a hard worker - super dedicated and persistent - but on top of that, there’s this love for the weird and wonderful, a belief in the unbelievable, that’s woven into everything I do. It pushes me off the beaten path, even to the wild sea and unknown places I’m about to explore.

Okay, let's get this straightened out. Should I see you again, after sailing across huge oceans and coming back through the southern tip of Africa or America? I'm not really expecting that, to be honest. But I can't deal with thinking about the worst-case scenario. Keep writing, okay?

Send letters whenever you can - sometimes I’ll need them more than you know to keep my head above water. I really care about you. If you never hear from me, please remember me fondly. Your loving brother, Robert