Thursday 18 February 1663/64

Annotations

• N Lawrence on Sun 18 Feb 2007, 11:41pm

  “wakened about 12 when my wife came to bed,” probably to tell him, the dog had messed, and that he’d best clean it up in the morning!

• N djc on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 12:15am

  All these late nights!
  All this quite contrary to the impression that people without electric light went to be when it was dark and rose at dawn.

• N Terry F on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 12:19am

  Inspiration for “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”?!

  Called up to the office and much against my will I rose,
  my head aching mightily,
  and to the office,
  where I did argue to good purpose for the King,
  which I have been fitting myself for the last night against Mr. Wood about his masts,
  but brought it to no issue.

  Precocious, Samuel Pepys! Simply precocious.

• N Terry F on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 12:24am

  Or better….

  Called up to the office and much against my will
  I rose,
  my head aching mightily,
  and to the office,

• N cumsalisgrano on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 01:41am

  Mastiff: Dad here be dog for thee to keep, makes a good bedwarmer, keeps all unruly bulls in their pasture, so that thee can chat up the milk maids. It can even pull thee free from the ousing waters if thee slip on some ice. luv S.

• N Michael Robinson on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 01:57am

  I did argue to good purpose for the King …

  … and SP’s own “gift” account

• N jeannine on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 02:14am

  “I wrote to my father about sending him the mastiff was given me yesterday”

  Hmmm, this is the second letter to his father this month. I can’t help but wonder if the offer of the dog is a ‘peace offering” after writing to him in anger on the 13th :

  “And there wrote fair my angry letter to my father upon that that he wrote to my cozen Roger Pepys, which I hope will make him the more carefull to trust to my advice for the time to come without so many needless complaints and jealousys, which are troublesome to me because without reason”.

  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1664/02/13/index.php

  or perhaps “revenge”, depending upon how one looks at being offered a gift that one has to feed, clean up after, etc.

• N Nate on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 07:07am

  All this quite contrary to the impression that people without electric light went to be when it was dark and rose at dawn.

  He had lanterns, fire, and candles but I expect that those to poor to afford them probably did go to bed early or discoursed in the dark.

• N Australian Susan on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 08:53am

  Early to bed
  Yes, all depends on the money. Up until the end of the 18th century/beg of 19th, the dinner hour was most often kept within daylight hours to save on articifial light: only the wealthy could afford to have fashionably late dinner hours. Jane Austen lampoons this in her unfinished novel fragment The Watsons, where a very smart young man calls on a household of impoverished gentry to be asked to stay for supper, but he retreats to his own home because he has not yet had dinner! In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte demonstrates knowledge of the condition of the rural poor when she has her hero knocking up a cottage family (to ask directions). It is a winter morning, but quite late: he is surprised to find them all in bed still. This is because (as Anne knew) there was no work, so they were staying in bed to keep warm and save on precious, expensive fuel (not all cottagers had the right to collect kindling or forewood from their landlord’s land).

• N Robert Gertz on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 03:52pm

  What was Bess doing till midnight?

• N JWB on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 04:05pm

  “What was Bess doing till midnight?”

  Talking of Michelangelo & counting the spoons.

• N ruizhe on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 06:42pm

  The luncheon meal is called “dinner” even today in rural parts of Illinois (at least by a Mormon family who’s son I’m acquainted with), dinner being the main meal of the day, and lunch being a well-needed energy boost for the farming types.

• N jeannine on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 07:19pm

  The Love Song of Samuel Pepys

  (For Terry F -your welcome back!)

  
  Oh us women we come and go
  Talking of Michelangelo

  Of our Sam Pepys women oft have their say
  Sharing female insights many a day

  But to dare disturb Sam’s universe
  Fine female comments we intersperse

  We’re no prophets—and here’s no great matter
  Women join male friends in this idle chatter

  We measure Sam’s life daily in coffee spoons
  Stringing thoughts in air in a festive festoon

  We squeeze Sam’s universe into a ball
  Sharing our great insights with one and all

  Is it impossible to say just what we mean
  The findings so vast from the Dairy we glean

  Full of high sentences, but a bit obtuse
  In all this writing that Sam did oft produce

  We’ve time yet for a hundred indecisions
  And for a hundred visions and revisions

  As Sam’s attendants, this chatty writing we do
  Will it swell a progress, start a scene maybe two

  At times, we’re indeed, almost ridiculous
  Then politic, cautious, and meticulous

  Almost, at times, the Fool we all may be
  At times writing with dreaded uncertainty

  Unraveling Sam’s words as a Diary sleuth
  A moment of clarity when I see the truth

  Do I dare risk writing my thoughts all down
  When others debate me, I fear I’ll drown

  Have I strength to force the moment to its crisis
  My findings so fruitful my mind is now Isis

  Should I let precious Diary secrets unfold
  Gather my bravery now, before I grow old!

  Dear friends who are reading I’d now make my speech
  But I’m too busy eating my lunch, a peach……..
  

• N Lawrence on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 08:27pm

  I know this is a silly question????
  But will we be dead centre of the Diary on 24th of this month? hope somebody out there will work it out for me, because maths is not my strong point!

• N EKmathcountschamp on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 09:33pm

  Sam started the Diary on Jan 1, 1660 and stopped on May 31, 1669, for a total of 3439 days (there are 3 leap years -in 1660, 1664 and 1668). The midpoint of his Diary would be 1719.5 days which (including the 2 leap years of 1660 and 1664) would bring us to the September 14/15 date.

  (EK is 10 years old!)

• N Michael Robinson on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 10:20pm

  Dead Centre of diary

  By “length” of text, end May 31st. / start June 1st 1665; — quick and dirty method based on a page count of a Wheatley edn. reprint. (1667 is a long text year, about 50% more than the average, which skews the result)

• N Lawrence on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 10:26pm

  Thanks EK, (Jeannine)
  Bit early to start celebrating Then!

• N Pedro on Mon 19 Feb 2007, 10:56pm

  Further Correspondence…

  “I send you an excellent mastiffe, his name Fido…”

• N cumsalisgrano on Tue 20 Feb 2007, 03:45am

  “length” of text” unci cum aut vacuus

• N Rod McCaslin on Tue 20 Feb 2007, 05:49pm

  A highly informative and wonderful read on the early modern experience of night-
  *At Day’s Close*
  http://www.amazon.com/At-Days-Close-Night-Times/dp/0393050890/sr=8-2/qid=1171993464/ref=sr_1_2/104-9204572-4735902?ie=UTF8&s=books