Tuesday 11 September 1660

Annotations

• N Brad W. on Thu 11 Sep 2003, 11:23pm

  I caused the girl to wash the wainscot of our parlour, which she did very well, which caused my wife and I good sport

  Can’t blame them, I like to watch other people work too….

  Seriously, what can he mean? Perhaps the tireless and amiable Jane made a game of the work, and they all had a laugh?

• N Nix on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 12:12am

  “I see that we are like to have a very good correspondence and neighbourhood, but chargeable” —

  Samuel seems to be saying that he an Batten should be able to get along well — but what does he mean by “chargeable”?

  OED gives 10 definitions of “chargeable”, and I am having trouble making any of them fit sensibly to this usage:

  1. Burdensome, troublesome. Obs.

  2. Weighty, grave; important. Obs.

  3. Involving responsibility; responsible. Obs.

  4. Burdensome (as a tax or payment); costly, expensive. Obs. (Formerly the most frequent meaning.)

  5. Liable to be called to account, answerable, responsible. Obs. or arch.

  6. Liable to be charged with (a fault, etc.).

  7. Subject to a charge, tax, or payment.

  8. Liable to be made a charge or expense (to the parish, etc.).

  9. Capable of being charged as a liability, obligation, debt, fault, offence, upon, on a person, etc.

  10. Proper to be charged to an account.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 01:00am

  The House of Parliament was to adjourn to-day. I know not yet whether it be done or no.
  L&M footnote: “It did not adjourn until the 13th.”

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 01:07am

  I see that we are like to have a very good correspondency and neighbourhood, but chargeable
  My guess is that SP fears that the cost of entertaining the neighbors (“keeping up with the Joneses”) will run into quite some expense (i.e., Once they invite you over for dinner and feast you lavishly, you’ll be forced to reciprocate in the same high style.).
  

• N chip on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 02:36am

  My initial response to chargeable was that of charge, as charged with energy. I took Pepys to mean that there are some lively characters on Seething Lane, and the atmosphere promises to be charged. I realize this is over 90 years before dear Ben Franklin flew his kite. But we still say, he or she is a charge. But now that Paul and Nix have chimed in, I am not so sure. Maybe it does have to do with money. It would be so like Pepys to think of it.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 02:41am

  I caused the Girle to wash the wainscote of our parler, which she did very well; which caused my wife and I good sport.
  I wonder if washing a wood panelled wall is something so la-di-dah that it gets them to giggling about there newly achieved place in high society.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 03:40am

  Chargeable, a
  I think the roughly contemporary quotes from the OED for definition 4 give me the best clue to SP’s meaning.
  4. Burdensome (as a tax or payment); costly, expensive. Obs. (Formerly the most frequent meaning.)
  …
  1618

• N Roger Arbor on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 06:36am

  … and for those who venture out into today’s City of London… will find it’s rather ‘Chargeable’ too.

  I was reading that London (as a whole) is now the most expensive place (for a visitor) on the planet. I’m sure Pepys would have tut-tutted… and counted the cash (again).

• N helena murphy on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 10:38am

  Is one to understand that the maid can competently clean the wainscotting with a broom and water? Is the source of the mirth the fact that they can economise on proper cleaning materials?
  Beeswax is recommemded for wood and in its absence according to Lisa Picard’s “Restoration London”, candle-ends, turpentine, with a little oil of lavender to perfume them was the acceptable polish of the day. It seems as if their disposable income is spent on clothes,correctly so in a society where social rank was paramount. They also receive many gifts of food and drink ,and when disposed to buy their own dinner it can be an inexpensive rabbit.

• N David A. Smith on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 01:44pm

  “very good … but chargeable”
  The key is the ‘but’, connoting a downside. Sam is discovering that when you live with the movers and shakers, there’s plenty of action, but you have to spend money to stay in the game. And to spend it, you have to make it. From life in the slow lane, he’s a-whirl in the fast lane, with breathtaking financial income and equally breathtaking financial outgo (not just the neighbors, but the wife, the colleagues), and the constant whiff of vacant space underneath (Will Pett go down? Will so-and-so lose his position?)
  A diary is a private confessional. Here we see play out all his anxieties, and if some of them only peep through the textual interstices, it’s a measure of how deep-seated (and perhaps not yet fully realized) those are.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 01:44pm

  Good Sport
  Maybe the comment is facetious for an argument. After all SP is assigning housecleaning duties to the girl when that’s the wife’s prerogative. After the

• N Mary on Fri 12 Sep 2003, 02:55pm

  Good sport

  Paul’s is an amusing suggestion. Pepys, since the dismissal of thieving Will, has no personal servant in the house, so possibly he feels the need to assert his authority by getting the girl to do his bidding in a domestic matter; this might irritate any housewife.