what interest and sympathy
That this is secondarily a puff for the narrative that follows,
openly charging us as readers to respond to it with interest and sympathy,
should not detract from its main function, which is to return us to the
opening sentence of the paragraph before and its honoring of the
essential human link inherent to fellow-feeling. That Walton's sympathy
for Victor Frankenstein should extend to the reader's sympathetic
reaction to them both is a fundamental tenet of Mary Shelley's
notion of the value of, the purpose for, writing.
