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, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.
Letters, Letter 2 · Robert Walton
Context
Walton writes to his sister Margaret from Archangel as he prepares for his Arctic voyage, describing the isolation he feels despite assembling a capable crew.
Analysis
The long sentence pivots sharply on a colon—'I have no friend, Margaret'—a blunt confession that interrupts Walton's elaborate complaint and forces the reader to feel his loneliness as a sudden rupture. The parallelism of 'when I am glowing... there will be none' and 'if I am assailed... no one will' maps emotional extremes onto identical grammar, suggesting that Walton experiences both triumph and failure as equally isolating. By balancing hypothetical joy against hypothetical despair, he reveals that his real problem is not any specific setback but the structural absence of witness.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Walton's loneliness is tied to ambition rather than circumstance—he doesn't lack people around him; he lacks an audience worthy of his grand emotions, which shows how his isolation is partly self-imposed.