Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
(Lord’s day). Up, and all the morning in my chamber setting some of my private papers in order, for I perceive that now publique business takes up so much of my time that I must get time a-Sundays or a-nights to look after my owne matters. Dined and spent all the afternoon talking with my wife, at night a little to the office, and so home to supper and to bed.
Monday 25 April 1664Saturday 23 April 1664
I feel your pain, my friend … the world continues to be too much with us. Or me, anyway…
So Sam’s moaning that he actually has to do work at work these days?
Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.
“a little to the office”
21st century version: My husband to me before going to bed: “I’ll just check my email….” (hours later…..)
The [a-*] construction was one that I heard from my grandmother as a child. She was from the far southwest corner of Virginia, born around 1895, and her frequent admonition, “Don’t think I’m not a-mindin’ you…” I still recall.
“look after my owne matters”
What might those be? Household accounts and other domestic items that, I’d thought, the Mrs. was to look after. Possibly family matters, the recent death of his brother, other entangled estates, potential inheritances, how about Mrs Lane - oh forget the question.
As to the ’21st century version’ of “a little to the office” viz. taking hours to ‘check [his] email’ - ya think Pepys had a little 17th century pr0n hidden under all those mast invoices?
The war machine grinds remorselessly on…
“Work,work,work, that’s all they do around here,” as a six-year-old girl was heard to declare as she strode grimly down the hallway of a private school in Washington D.C. some years ago.
Tomorrow [25th] be a birthday that no Royalist wants to remember. The Leader of the Commonwealth,
Cromwell.
The great sense of being put-upon which verifies one’s supposed indispensability. Well, perhaps in this case it’s justified: there’s never been another Pepys.
“The war machine grinds remorselessly on…”
MEETING THE WAR-MACHINE
So we dwelt in the war-girdled city as a very part of its life.
Looking back at it all from England, I an atom of the strife,
I can see that I might have seen what the end would be from the first,
The hope of man devoured in the day when the Gods are athirst.
But those days we lived, as I tell you, a life that was not our own;
And we saw but the hope of the world, and the seed that the ages had sown,
Spring up now a fair-blossomed tree from the earth lying over the dead;
Earth quickened, earth kindled to spring-tide with the blood that her lovers have shed,
With the happy days cast off for the sake of her happy day,
With the love of women foregone, and the bright youth worn away,
With the gentleness stripped from the lives thrust into the jostle of war,
With the hope of the hardy heart forever dwindling afar.
“The Pilgrims of Hope” XII. first stanza. William Morris (1885)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1885/pilgrim/poems/poem12.htm
Hard to believe Morris wrote that before our terrifying 20th century and its world wars and insane massacres. Thanks, Terry.
“ya think Pepys had a little 17th century pr0n hidden under all those mast invoices?”
Probably not. Although ribald, bawdy, and erotic tales go back to the beginnings of recorded language, porn in the modern sense, i.e. prose designed specifically for the purpose of sexual arousal, is generally regarded to have started with the publication of John Cleland’s “Fanny Hill” in 1748-49.
Terry, many thanks for the Morris!