He was a British explorer; not a man of letters, but his last one addressed simply “To my widow” echoes 95 years later with candor and love. The letter from Sir Robert Falcon Scott to his wife, Kathleen, became public in its entirety last week; its calm bravery has the power to inspire.
Facing death, “we are in a very tight corner and I have doubts of pulling through,” Scott wrote during rest stops over several days in early 1912 as he and two companions trudged across the Antarctic, finally huddling in a tent while starvation and a minus-70-degree blizzard enveloped them. Even under such harsh conditions, Scott bequeathed insights that betray the clear-headed concerns of the dying: “Well dear heart I want you to take the whole thing very sensibly as I am sure you will–the boy will be your comfort … it is a satisfaction that he is safe with you.”
Scott wrote with a sense of self, of devotion, of his legacy. He told his wife that he had put her photos on his chest, and that in his kit bag were small pieces of the Union Jack he had flown at the South Pole. They were to go to the king and the queen of England. He also included the flag his Norwegian rival, Roald Amundsen, had left at the pole, after beating Scott to the prize by a few weeks.
Scott wrote several other letters to his young son, Peter, and to those sponsoring his expedition, but he clearly worried about the impact of his death on Kathleen. “… Dearest that you know cherish no sentimental rubbish about remarriage–when the right man comes to help you in life you ought to be your happy self again–I hope I shall be a good memory …”
Scott wrote, too, of what he considered important in life. Without self-pity for all that he would miss as a parent, he issued gentle instructions for “the boy’s” future, encouraging Kathleen to “make the boy interested in natural history if you can, it’s better than games … I know you will keep him out in the open air–try and make him believe in a God, it is comforting.” (“The boy,” known to history as Sir Peter Markham Scott, became a famed British naturalist.)
With the end near, Scott recalled sadly what wonderful stories he would never be able to tell of his journey. Still, he wrote, “How much better it has been than lounging in comfort at home.”
Where many of us would be paralyzed by grief, Scott instead sought comfort in the hope of one last communication. He wrote with the frankness of a man preparing to meet a death that his actions–his passion for exploration–had brought upon himself. “I think the best chance has gone we have decided not to kill ourselves but to fight it to the last for that depot but in fighting there is a painless end so don’t worry.”
Over the weekend, the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge released more letters, including one that Kathleen wrote as she set off for New Zealand in late 1912 to join her husband. She hoped an expeditionary ship would get her letter to him before the two of them reunited. Today we take instant communication for granted. But unbeknown to Kathleen, she was writing to a husband who had died on the ice half a year earlier.
In her letter, she wrote of her joy at the prospect of seeing Scott again, and she assured him of how much he was loved in Britain. She dismissed his not being the first to the South Pole as a mere “pinprick” and that their future lives together would be “glorious.”
Kathleen, a sculptor with a reputation for independence, followed her husband’s advice and remarried a decade later. She lived for 35 years after Scott’s death and zealously guarded his legacy.
Two love letters. Two enduring loves.
