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.