extraordinary merits
The addition of such powerfully honorific diction is clearly meant to
strengthen the reader's impression of Victor Frankenstein leading into
his assumption of the novel's narrative. In 1818 the effect of Walton's
enthusiasm was to make him appear rather credulous, easily taken in by
Victor's cultivated manner. The reader, of course,
whatever the inflations of vocabulary in which Walton indulges, may yet
think the same of him in the 1831 version.
