We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last … Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.—Captain Robert Falcon Scott

The final entry in Robert Falcon Scott’s diary is dated March 29, 1912, 104 years ago today. His expedition to the South Pole, begun in 1910 with his ship’s departure from Wales, had become by 1911 a race with Roald Amundsen’s team to be the first to reach the Pole. In January 1912, Scott and four others reached the South Pole only to find a tent and a month-old note from Amundsen stating that he had beaten Scott. The return journey, now one of defeat, stretched on for weeks. Scott and his team started to slow their travels due to frostbite, found that supplies left for them had evaporated in the cold, and missed a meeting by weeks with the remainder of his team. (The team had abandoned hope for them and returned to their ship, where they waited and waited for Scott.) One of Scott’s companions committed suicide simply by stepping outside their tent and standing in the harsh conditions outside: “I am just going outside and I may be some time,” were his last words, Scott wrote.
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Saint Teresa of Avila was born on this date in 1515. A mystic, she experienced religious visions and what she called “divine joy” while painfully ill; she is the patron saint of those who suffer headaches and physical pain and those who are ridiculed for their piety. St. Teresa is depicted in many works of art, music, and literature, including Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s masterwork “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” in the Santa Maria della Vittoria church, carved 1647–52, pictured above.

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“Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again.” Virginia Woolf wrote her last letter to her husband, wrote her last anything, and drowned herself in the River Ouse 75 years ago today. She was 59 and this was her third suicide attempt and letter. She was most likely bipolar and it had been an exhausting existence. “Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness,” she wrote Leonard Woolf. It is a stunning and simply heart-breaking statement that she hand-wrote (after the fold):
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Today is Easter Sunday. Above, part of “The Ascension of Christ” by Salvador Dalí (1958. Oil on canvas. Pérez Simón Collection).

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“The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash” aired on British television on this date in 1978. A parody of the history of The Beatles created by Eric Idle (Monty Python) and Neil Innes (Bonzo Dog Band), the film performed better in the ratings than it had a week earlier on American television, where it finished last for the night. Innes composed the songs with an intention to make them sound more Beatles-esque than Beatles … um, -ish … and was sued for copyright infringement by representatives of The Beatles. The film (below the fold):
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