Sunday 31 March 1661

(Sunday). At church, where a stranger preached like a fool. From thence home and dined with my wife, she staying at home, being unwilling to dress herself, the house being all dirty. To church again, and after sermon I walked to my father’s, and to Mrs. Turner’s, where I could not woo The. to give me a lesson upon the harpsicon and was angry at it. So home and finding Will abroad at Sir W. Batten’s talking with the people there (Sir W. and my Lady being in the country), I took occasion to be angry with him, and so to prayers and to bed.

Monday 1 April 1661Saturday 30 March 1661

Also on this day

Temperature: 6°C / 43°F

(Average for March 1661)

In Earls Colne, Essex

Diary of Ralph Josselin

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N BradW on Wed 31 Mar 2004, 11:15pm. Flag this

There there, Sam, I’ve had days like that too, when nobody will cooperate. I hope he prayed for temperance and humility. One of my fascinations with this unfolding diary is Sam’s character arc, from the humble, hopeful and (sometimes) pious young husband to the now somewhat jaded and worldly man of ambition. Knowing more or less how the opus ends in 6 years doesn’t spoil the journey for me.
N Glyn on Wed 31 Mar 2004, 11:30pm. Flagged

Today
N Kevin Peter on Wed 31 Mar 2004, 11:37pm. Flag this

Sam is certainly grumpy today isn’t he? It doesn’t seem to have been a good day for him at all. He gets angry at the bad sermon, at Theophila for being uncooperative, and at Will for socializing.

I wonder if Will should have been doing something else and was neglecting his duties, or if Sam just happened to want to talk to Will, and became angry at not finding him when it was most convenient?
Sometimes a little annoyance when you’re in a bad mood can really get you upset.

I hope Sam has a better day tomorrow!
N Susan on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 12:09am. Flag this

Servants were/are supposed to ask permission before leaving the house. Sam, in a bad mood already, becomes really annoyed when he sees his authority thwarted yet again that day: his wife refused him, a pert little girl refused him and now one of his servants seems to be disregarding him. Yes, I agree with Glyn, I think this reflects uncertainty and insecurity in his position - but how honest he is to mention it all.
N Josh on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 12:45am. Flag this

“At church, where a stranger preached like a fool.”
And the rest of the day Pepys suffers from dissing the Lord’s would-be servant, and during Lent too!* Q.E.D.

*p.s.: Is Easter ever going to get here?
N language hat on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 12:51am. Flag this

“At church, where a stranger preached like a fool”

I love this guy! No namby-pamby pulling of punches or beating around the bush. And yes, he seems pretty disgruntled today. Nice summary, Glyn.
N Bob C. on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 01:50am. Flag this

“… prayed like a fool” can mean with extreme exhuberance or abandon, at least in modern U.S. parlance. I don’t think SP meant this, but I wonder when this alternative usage became current.
N Michael on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 03:22am. Flag this

“I took occasion to be angry with him”
Does this mean that he became deliberately angry and that he knows that he did this, at least at the moment when he sat down writing, or is there (as there is so often) some different use of the words? If it is the first interpretation this seems to be remarkable, not so much for SP blowing off steam after a rotten day, but for knowing it and reflecting on it - once again quite elegantly in as few words as possible.
N vincent on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 03:53am. Flag this

At the Abbey Dr Heywood did preach 9 Heb: a.v.4 ad 16 a selected line
“…10: Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
11…”
N vincent on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 03:57am. Flag this

sorry here is the rest: ref:http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvHebr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1
N Susan on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 04:33am. Flag this

Michael - I took this to mean that Sam delibrately told Will off and chose to do this, rather than turn a blind eye to what was a fairly minor wrongdoing, which he might have done if he not had such a rotten day. Maybe he still feels uneasy about how to treat servants - how much to give and take.
N Pauline on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 04:44am. Flag this

“deliberately”, yes
versus flying off in anger.
I think he sometimes has to make himself act as the master, but is more than willing to take that role. With his female servants, though, he seems more likely to fly off the handle.

Elizabeth falls short of keeping the domestic arrangements up to Sam’s expectations, but he is disappointed and put out more often than angry.
N dirk on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 04:55am. Flag this

“I took occasion to…”

From a liguistic point of view a very interesting expression. Grammatically it’s an active use of the verb to take, but I have the impression that it has a passive meaning. Maybe you could even have said something like: “I took occasion to have a headache”. Anybody know anything more on this.
N Mary on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 07:57am. Flag this

Take occasion

I can find no authority for the usage that Dirk suggests (which would roughly equate to the modern use of ‘happen’: I happened to have a headache, I happened to be angry with him). I think Sam’s phraseology implies that he’s decided that enough is enough as far as Will’s conduct is concerned and that he chooses to remonstrate forcefully on this particular day.
N Pedro. on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 08:36am. Flag this

Poor old Sam.

“Illegitimi nil carborundum.”
(Please excuse my vulgar pidgin latin.)
N Xjy on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 08:40am. Flag this

Take occasion
I agree with Mary, with the additional element that he deliberately picks on Will to let off steam after the accumulated frustrations of the day. Maybe a different kind of rage from when he batters the female servants.
A real look-back-in-anger kitchen-sink kind of Sunday.
N Rich Merne on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 09:30am. Flag this

“I took occasion to be angry with him”, I think Sam is saying something very literal in the sense of the times. In our modern parlance you can get very close to Sam’s event if you insert the determiner ‘an’, between Sam’s “took” and “occasion”. He made it his business to find an occasion (remote from the actual event) to be angry with him. From that point of view it was deliberate and predetermined and he took or found a time to do it. ‘As soon as I see him, I’ll give him what for’ (sic)
N ledmat on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 11:05am. Flag this

Illegitimis non carborundum est?
N Emilio on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 01:00pm. Flag this

“Illegitimis non carborundum”

For any wondering, I believe this is a phrase I ran across in The Handmaid’s Tale: ‘Don’t let the bastards get to you’. Please correct me, anyone, if I’m not remembering it quite right.

And are we perhaps reading too much into “take occasion”? I agree it implies a certain deliberate quality to Sam’s anger, but the descriptions are also starting to make it sound calculated and vindictive.
N Wim van der Meij on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 01:27pm. Flag this

Maybe Will’s misbehaviour was only the last drop after the day’s frustrations. In that case Sam just flew off the handle and Will just happened to be the bystander to bear the brunt of it; there was not any deliberation on Sam’s part… At least this would have been more like the Sam as we have seen him till now.
N Susan on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 01:39pm. Flag this

It’s literally “grind you down”; schoolboy dog-Latin. Remember the scene in Life of Brian when the John Cleese Roman Soldier makes Graham Chapman (Brian) correct the grammar in his dog-Latin grafitti? Cleese originally earned his keep as a teacher in a boys’ public school in Bristol: his Roman soldier parodied a bullying Latin teacher very well!
N David Duff on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 02:56pm. Flagged
N Mary on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 03:20pm. Flag this

the house being all dirty.

If the building of this staircase has involved knocking any holes in walls, I can sympathise with Elizabeth not wanting to risk her Sunday best dress or her neck in scrambling up and down the ladder that Sam mentioned 4 days ago. If she has any sense, she is keeping her chamber door firmly shut against all the plaster/brick dust (it gets everywhere)and is wearing her oldest clothes around the house at present.
N David A. Smith on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 05:35pm. Flag this

“Illegitimum non Carborundum”
It’s fake Latin, not real, but no less entertaining for that:
http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/mailing_lists/CLA-L/1999/06/0295.php
Indeed, for thirty years I have sung it to the tune of “Ten Thousand Men of Harvard,” for which purpose I believe it was written!

Illegitimum non Carborundum; Domine salvum fac.
Illegitimum non Carborundum; Domine salvum fac.
Gaudeamus igitur!
Veritas non sequitur?
Illegitimum non Carborundum—Ipso facto!

There is a further verse, also in pseudo Latin (ending with a raucous English “and save some for me!”), that is too vulgar for our tender audience …
N Ruben on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 05:40pm. Flagged

Illegitimis non carborundum
N Michael on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 06:35pm. Flag this

“took occasion”
The interesting part about it is not so much that he told his servant off, but that he is self-conscious about it. My guess is that most people would just give hell to their servants at that time, perhaps punish them, and never give it a second thought. I have seen in some less developed countries how servants are treated as non-entities even today. Sam is much more reflective about it, and he seems to feel that there is some role playing involved - perhaps a role he likes to play, but not one which has become second nature to him. At least not yet.
N vincent on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 07:22pm. Flag this

Prayers at home”…and so to prayers and to bed….” It appears that He {SP} does observed other Religious activities. After such an emotional day from morning to night “Everything ” appears to be against his thoughts, nowadays he would pop a pill, at least the dog stays out of site. Luv all of the above.

“… to be angry with him …”
SP forgot his Horice “ira furor brevis est” anger is madness short lived.
Epistles I ii 62.
for verification, see or google
http://www.sacklunch.net/Latin/I/irafurorbrevisest.html
http://www.transkrypt.de/experimente/cuibono/layouts/ira.html
N Eric Walla on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 07:42pm. Flag this

I agree with Michael and crew that Sam was deliberate in his choice of words concerning the berating of Will …

… Sam does seem to be in a learning phase on how to deal with servants. This appears to be an instructional sort of anger, for Will’s own good, so to speak. He may easily have let this minor gaff pass by on other occasions, but why waste a good opportunity to put your boy in his place when you already have a full head of steam!?
N Dennis Richards on Thu 1 Apr 2004, 11:23pm. Flag this

“took occasion”

I belive that the modern usage of the above would be -“took the opportunity to…
N E on Fri 2 Apr 2004, 12:20pm. Flag this

I agree with Dennis. Googling shows “took occasion to” being used just as one might use “took the opportunity to”, for either a sudden whim seizing the moment, or for recognising an opening to carry out an existing plan.

Unless anyone has clear quotes from the period, it would appear that we cannot determine whether Pepys’ action was calculated or not.