Thursday, 17 November 1910

Scott

"I don't know how long it is since I have been so anxious about anything as I am about these ponies," Oates wrote in a letter to his mother. "Scott has left everything to me in connection with them. When I look at the stalls sometimes I think they are too small and the ponies wont go in and sometimes I think they are too big, next minute I think we shall never get them out again if we do get them in until I feel positively sick with anxiety.... I have had a great struggle with Scott about the horse forage he said, 'not one oz over 30 so its no use arguing' however we argued for one hour and he has given way which shows he is open to reason ... he told me I was a something nuisance." [1]


Notes:

[1] L.E.G. Oates, letter to Caroline Oates, 17 November, 1910, quoted by David Crane in Scott of the Antarctic (New York : Knopf, c2005), p.388-389.