Friday 25 October 1661

Annotations

• N RexLeo on Mon 25 Oct 2004, 11:36pm

  “…I seeming willing to stay with them to talk my wife grew angry, and whether she be jealous or no I know”

  Oh, the feeble male mind-Sam, Liz reads you like a book! Stop ogling Mrs. Pierce.

  “…This day I did give my man Will a sound lesson about his forbearing”

  Another instance of domestic discontent finding another outlet through which the pent up frustrations flow.
  

• N Bradford on Mon 25 Oct 2004, 11:36pm

  Foodies, do not fail to follow the Pasty Link and read the recipe and commentary so richly provided.

  I’d give a 1661 pound to know what Will said, or how he comported himself, during Sam’s Sermon, which naturally is not vouchsafed to posterity.

• N Glyn on Mon 25 Oct 2004, 11:55pm

  Best Friends

  Everywhere that Mistress Pierce goes, Mistress Clifford goes as well.

  According to her Biographical Page, here are some of the times that Mrs Pierce has been recorded in the Diary so far, and it might be useful to recap them:

  Jan 26 1660:

• N A. Hamilton on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 02:22am

  when you

• N vicente on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 02:57am

  It should be only a hart to hart meeting.[hind most thought]

• N daniel on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 03:05am

  lute-string
  nice to know that Sam is modernizing his lute by getting “double-coursing” as it is now technically known.

• N vicente on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 03:07am

• N upper_left_hand_corner on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 06:22am

  Dirk and others bored by yesterday’s (and previous entries) should certainly be more satisfied now. Plenty of meat in this one.

  And the end of the month is nigh — we might anticipate a long summation.

• N andy on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 09:14am

  Meeting a venison pasty must be like meeting an old friend, how many has he eaten now?

  And I feel for “Fire-at” Will getting the brunt of Sam’s frustration.

• N David A. Smith on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 02:59pm

  “she loves not that I should speak of Mrs. Pierce”
  Sam, Sam, Sam, will you please shut up about Mrs. Pierce? Not only can it do you no marital good to keep babbling on that you think she’s hot, she is also a walking baby factory, and Elizabeth is not.
  Have you not heard the sound advice, “when you’re in a hole, stop digging”?
  You’re going to gain no traction on either point, my boy, and would you, for your own good, in the immortal words of Archie Bunker, “just *stifle* it”?

• N A. Hamilton on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 03:24pm

  It should be only a hart to hart meeting.[hind most thought]

  O brave Vincent! “Whoso list to hunt…”

• N JWB on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 03:28pm

  Coy Sam
  He’s being disingenuous. Starts entry calling notice to his merry & handsome wife and then meeting Mrs Pierce w/ Mrs. P’s rx, he writes, “…whether she be jealous or no I know not”. He knows. And he’s reveling in it.

• N A. De Araujo on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 06:20pm

  “wheather she be jealous or no I know not”
  Oh yes you do;methinks you are getting even because of that Frenchman with feathers.

• N David A. Smith on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 07:47pm

  “sound lesson about his forbearing to give us the respect”
  Being the boss must be learned — it’s not instinctive. And the relationship of an employer and employee is, fundamentally, economic and therefore neither social nor equal. Employers can be friendly with staff but only when both employer and employee have internalized their economic fundamentals.
  That said, there is a bit of the cock-of-the-walk (to quote Hedda Gabler) in Sam’s dual entries here, first his drooling over Mrs. Pierce, then his leash-tug on poor Will.
  As the Greeks tiresomely reminded us, hubris is inevitably folllowed by nemesis …
  And no, I haven’t read ahead. But Sam is cruisin’ for a bruisin’ here.
  

• N David A. Smith on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 07:49pm

  “my Lady very merry and very handsome, methought”
  JWB, that’s not Elizabeth to whom he’s referring, but Lady Jemima Montagu, his boss’s wife and longtime admirata (to invent some Latin).
  Which doesn’t make it any better, Sam’s strewing compliments on everybody but the woman next to whom he goes ‘and so to bed’.

• N Nix on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 07:52pm

  We met with a venison pasty —

  How much doe did it cost?

• N vicente on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 08:25pm

  “sound lesson about his forbearing to give us the respect” ‘tis why publick [not so common]schools were invented. Leadership for some, it be natural, for others [never enough natural centers of attention], it would be to be trained in the art of fagging then prefecting the art. Normally in large Organisations, when was elevated to a position of authority [i.e. one stripe or pip or other token of being put on the fast track], one was moved to a location, where one was not known, there by able to issue commands without the hoi polloi taking advantage of previous stupidities.
  Sam for much of his late teens and early manhood was on the receiving end of leadership, his coz was thrust in to band of brotherhood of dashing leaders at the age of 17, leading a band of faithfull men into the mud and blud of life endangering endeavours.
  ‘Tis a little awkward to try and learn these skills at 28, but having control of purse is a major weapon of control.

• N Al Day on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 08:33pm

  We met with a venison pasty

• N Another Judy on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 09:49pm

  We met with venison pasty
  Stag-er-ing entries…..

• N dirk on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 10:36pm

  We met with venison pasty

  And what a meating that was…
  

• N Nix on Tue 26 Oct 2004, 10:37pm

  “An Entrancing Ego: Samuel Pepys” —

  A wonderful profile of Samuel and appreciation of the diary and Tomalin’s biography, in the Hudson Review:

  http://www.hudsonreview.com/ParkSu04.html

• N Louis on Wed 27 Oct 2004, 01:42am

  Re Will vs. Mr. Pepys:

  “An inch in the eye of a servant is a foot in the eye of a master.”
  —-Japanese

• N Mary House on Wed 27 Oct 2004, 02:58am

  Thank you Nix for the wonderful profile.

• N JWB on Thu 28 Oct 2004, 03:22pm

  “merry & handsome”
  My Lady of course. Sorry for my carelessness. The greater the distance from Sam’s entry to the annotation box, the greater I’m likely to be mistaken.