Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
ROYAL MAIL STEAMSHIP "CARPATHIA3" April 18 My Dear Boy1;
At three oclock this afternoon we sighted Portugal, Cape St
Vincent4, and ever since we have been sailing very softly along this
shore which is pretty nearly holy ground to them as speak the English tongue. In a
few hours we will be in Trafalgar Bay2,
where Nelson5 broke Napoleon's6 fleet for good. He chased the French
fleet all up and down this coast as far as Cape St–Vincent, and the bottom all along here is strewn with french and the bones of Frenchmen and Spaniards and
Italians that went down. Our English captain confessed to me this afternoon that he
never steams down this coast without thinking of it and setting his heels[?] tighter on his bridge. I keep
seeing Nelson on his great column7 in
Trafalgar Square in London8, and thinking of the letter he wrote Lady Hamilton9 the night before the battle, which I saw in the British Museum10. All up and
down here Nelson chased them. "If Blood be the price of admiralty."11 I
love to think of all those bones along the bottom here. I love to think of the
little admiral chasing them up and down. I love to think how here the English navy
was exalted above all the navies of the earth. And when he had chased 'em up and
down and cleaned the waters of 'em, the little admiral up and died. And they put him
up on his column in London and Landseer12 made
his bronze lions to guard him, and the English people loved Lady Hamilton better
than the queen because Lord Nelson had loved her.
I wish you could see these soft gray waters, and the wild bleak Portugal coast, and could sit here with me and think about all their bones down below.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2058.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2058
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- April 18 [1908]
- Place letter was written
- Cape Trafalgar, Cádiz, Spain2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
The RMS Carpathia, a transatlantic passenger steamship, became well known as the ship that rescued over 700 passengers from the life boats of the RMS Titanic in 1912. Cather took the ship when she went to Italy in the spring of 1908.
Cather visited London and the British Museum in July 1902.
Person Annotations
Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother.
Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High
School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high
school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of
schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he
married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an
abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret
and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe
became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA,
where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in
the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank
until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several
times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926
trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San
Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle
family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was
one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a
prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Nelson, Horatio (1758-1805). British admiral. Early in his
naval career, Nelson served in conflicts in the West Indies, where he met
and married the young widow, Frances Herbert Nisbet of Nevis, in 1787. In
his last naval engagement, the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar against the combined
fleets of the French and Spanish navies in the Napoleonic Wars, the British
fleet under his command won a decisive victory. However, while he was
standing on the deck of the HMS Victory a French musketeer fatally shot him.
At the time of his death he had been carrying on an affair of long standing
with Emma, Lady Hamilton, who bore him several children.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). French military and political leader.
Napoleon first rose to prominence as a military leader during the
French Revolution and reigned as Emperor of France from 1804-1814 and in
1815. As emperor he set out to dominate Europe and through military action
built an empire across Europe that finally collapsed in 1815. He died in
exile on the island of Saint Helena. In Willa Cather’s The
Professor’s House, although the title character goes by the name
Godfrey St. Peter, he was given the first name Napoleon at birth, a name
passed down in his family from an ancestor who served in Napoleon’s army and
migrated to French Canada.
Hamilton, Emma, Lady Hamilton (c. 1765-1815). British social
celebrity and artist’s model. Hamilton is best known for her
long affair with Horatio Nelson, which resulted in the birth of several
children. George Romney painted several portraits of her, including “Lady
Hamilton as ‘Nature’” (1782), held by the Frick Collection in New York
City.
Landseer, Edwin Henry (1802-1873). English painter. Landseer
was known for his paintings of animals, which made him Queen Victoria’s
favorite painter. Although his training and reputation were as a painter, he
accepted a commission for bronze sculptures of lions for a memorial to
Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died in the battle of Trafalgar. Landseer’s
lions were installed around “Nelson’s Column” in Trafalgar Square in London
in 1867.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Song of the Dead," English Illustrated Magazine (May 1893) by Rudyard Kipling
