Thursday 28 January 1663/64
Up and to the office, where all the morning sitting, and at noon upon several things to the ’Change, and thence to Sir G. Carteret’s to dinner of my own accord, and after dinner with Mr. Wayth down to Deptford doing several businesses, and by land back again, it being very cold, the boat meeting me after my staying a while for him at an alehouse by Redriffe stairs. So home, and took Will coming out of my doors, at which I was a little moved, and told my wife of her keeping him from the office (though God knows my base jealous head was the cause of it), which she seemed troubled at, and that it was only to discourse with her about finding a place for her brother. So I to my office late, Mr. Commander coming to read over my will in order to the engrossing it, and so he being gone I to other business, among others chiefly upon preparing matters against Creed for my profit, and so home to supper and bed, being mightily troubled with my left eye all this evening from some dirt that is got into it.
23 Annotations
First Reading
Robert Gertz • Link
Poor Will...But no real danger of course. I mean who...Who among Sam's many good friends and associates could there be who would ever seek to play Iago to Sam's Moor?
"So...You say young Hewer had been with Elisabeth while you were at Deptford, Pepys." Sir Will Penn nods thoughtfully. "That is a bit...Well, no matter, certainly...What harm could there be in that she turns to your chief clerk...So long in your home, so much closer to her in age...To find her brother a place? Best to put it right out of your mind, my boy." Reassuring smile...Pat on shoulder.
"Of course...It is strange...Him leaving the office like that knowing you were gone. But what could be the harm, eh? Ridiculous to even let the darker side of the matter surface in your mind momentarily...Beware of jealously, my fellow Shakespeare buff." friendly chuckle...
"Still..." a pause... "I remember how you said he tried to give her a necklace once...And how reluctant she was to return it. Yes, yes...Women are like that about things...And people...They become strongly attached to..."
"Mr. Turner?" Sam glances round the office. "Where is Mr. Hewer?"
"Gone to fetch something for Mrs. Pepys, I think he said, sir. Was going to drop it by your house, sir."
Slight blink on Sam's part.
"Pray excuse me, Sir Will...I believe I forgot someone...thing at home."
"Certainly, certainly..." Eyes the dashing Sam...Doing the homeward sprint in record time.
Sly grin to the watching Batten...
Robert Gertz • Link
"...preparing matters against Creed for my profit..."
Hmmn?
"But...My Lord." a terrified Creed faces the grim, wrathful stare of Sandwich. "I am innocent...A few discrepancies in my accounts may exist but my good friend Mr. Pepys can testify that..."
Robert Gertz • Link
No word of Tom's condition or attempt to seek him out? I know Sam's a busy fellow and Tom's a grown man, but it's not as though Tom lives in Wales or Virginia colony.
ruizhe • Link
Tom?
Well, he's probably a goner at this point. People Sam knows tend to die pretty frequently throughout his lifetime, and he can't just drop everything to share in their suffering just because they're at death's door. Plus, he wasn't at home. Plus, its just too damn depressing to think about.
cumgranosalis • Link
Reflective thought; "...(though God knows my base jealous head was the cause of it), ..." It would not have crossed his fertile mind, if he had not tried some 'ankie pankie 'imself.
Our vision of others is often the vision we see in thy mirror.
Glyn • Link
What's to be done with Balthy.
Does anyone remember just how many jobs Balthy has applied for in the last few years? Soldier, sailor, high-class clerk? Considering the number of places available when republicans were got rid of, there should be opportunities for him. Has he ever had a job during the Diary period?
About Tom, he's been walking around and going out of his house - is that normal for consumption?
Glyn • Link
And is Will now in a position to be able to find a job for Balty, or is it simply that he's likely to know of opportunities in the Navy Office. Somehow I can't see Sam and Balty making a harmonious working team: one meticulous about work, the other a little slapdash, perhaps.
Mary • Link
Is that normal for consumption?
Perfectly normal for the working man in times past. Only the wealthy could afford to take to their beds and go into a gentle decline, the working man (and woman) had to keep going as long as they could drag themselves about.
Pedro • Link
Consumption.
(Restoration London by Liza Picard)
"In most years of this period, it was the principal cause of death. Its relentless, debilitating decline was often attributed to witchcraft ("fascination"). It took a brave physician to suggest, in 1664, that it might have other causes, even though he was wide of the mark in identifying those causes as "touching unhealthy bodies" or "vapours from sick women". Culpeper, who included so many remedies for it in his books, died of it."
cumgranosalis • Link
Consumption [ TB] still a world class disease.
Consumption. not the modern disease of using up the worlds resources but the one that uses up the body in the ever losing battle , often tuberculosis [pthhidid of the lungs] caused by tubercle bacillus [ 1/3 of the world harbours the the germ not all know it]
About 90% of those infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis have ... For example, tuberculosis cases in Britain, numbering around 50000 in 1955, ...
TB is spread by aerosol droplets expelled by people with the active disease of the lungs when they cough, sneeze, speak, or spit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube…
all your doctor immediately if you have any of the symptoms listed here:
Abdominal pain
Blurred vision
Continued loss of appetite
Dark (coffee-colored) urine
Fever
Nausea
Rash or itching
Tingling or burning feeling in your hands or feet
Tiredness without reason
Vomiting
Yellow color of eyes or skin
http://familydoctor.org/120.xml
causes http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/…
Tuberculosis (say: too-burr-cue-low-sis), also called TB, is an infection caused by a bacteria (a germ). Tuberculosis usually affects the lungs, but it can spread to the kidneys, bones, spine, brain and other parts of the body
http://familydoctor.org/120.xml
Pedro • Link
"being mightily troubled with my left eye all this evening from some dirt that is got into it."
Could this be an occupational hazard, brought about by looking through peepholes?
A. De Araujo • Link
"brought about by looking through peepholes"
methinks not, because it was his left eye and methinks Sam is right handed so he would favor the right eye to look through peepholes :)
Charlene • Link
"Consumption" in the 1660s referred more to a cluster of symptoms than a true diagnosis. If you were weak and pale and were coughing up blood, you had consumption.
Those symptoms are common in TB, but they're also found in patients with cancer that's spread to the lungs (as cancer often does). Doctors in 1664 didn't perform autopsies often, so most cancers weren't diagnosed even after death. The only cancers that were diagnosed before death were those close to or on the surface - those affecting the breast, skin, nasopharynx, and sometimes the rectum and cervix - and those that caused huge swellings in one limb. Otherwise people just weakened and died.
Robert Gertz • Link
A few famous TB or suspected TB deaths-
Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis VIII of France, King Edward VI of England.
Napoleon II possibly encouraged by his jailers.
John Calvin
John Keats and several family members, the five Bronte sisters
Legendary father of country music,
Jimmie Rodgers (1897 - 1933) who sang the woes of having tuberculosis in the song T.B. Blues.
Luigi Boccherini, Italian cellist and composer, died in 1805 of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Edward Bellamy, "Looking Backward".
Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Paganini, Schiller, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Orwell, Stravinsky. Frédéric Chopin of consumption in 1849. He is said to have had episodes of hemoptysis during performances.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1962, of an old TB lesion contracted in Europe in 1918. Her diagnosis by a British physician went ignored and her illness was seen as the result of depression over her discovery of her husband's affair.
Nix • Link
TB victims --
add the Old West dentist/gunman Doc Holliday
Second Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... it was only to discourse with her about finding a place for her brother."
A place, everyone has assumed, was a position. I read it to mean housing. Could it be either, or is this a word that has changed meaning?
Louise Hudson • Link
"being mightily troubled with my left eye all this evening from some dirt that is got into it."
Probably a bit of dirty jealousy in his eye.
Robert Harneis • Link
@ Sarah Definitely a position. Place as in placemen - http://www.dictionary.com/browse/…
Bill • Link
“it was only to discourse with her about finding a place for her brother”
PLACE, Space or Room, in which a Person or Thing is; also Office or Employment.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thanks Bill and Robert ... I think we can agree it's ambiguous. I'm coming down on the side of lodging because William 'Will' Hewer (born in 1642) was only 21 years old, and probably wasn't in a position to recommend employment to Balty (born between 1638 and 1641). However, he had just found new lodgings for himself, so he would be aware of local vacancies. As Balty recently got married, he might be looking. We may find out who's right soon.
Sasha Clarkson • Link
Hmm - I don't think the "finding a place" in the context of 17th century idiom is ambiguous at all: I've never seen it, or similar expressions, used in the sense of lodgings in any pre 20th century literature. Will isn't much younger than Elizabeth and has a responsible job as Sam's PA. Hence, Will is likely be aware of available navy jobs, as well as, via his father's and uncle Blackborne's merchant connections, positions in the "private sector". So it wouldn't be unnatural for Elizabeth to ask him to keep his ear to the ground for something suitable for Balthy.
San Diego Sarah • Link
So it is a word that has changed meaning. Thanks, Sasha.
Chris Squire UK • Link
Re: ‘ . . finding a place for her brother . . ‘
I agree with Sasha that the sense here is:
‘place, n.1 < Latin
. . III. Senses relating to position or situation with reference to its occupation or occupant.
. . 14. a. A job, office, or situation . .
. . 1612 W. Strachey Lawes in P. Force Tracts (1844) III. ii. 24 If any officer shall so doe [sc. strike any soldier], hee shall bee..held vnworthy to command, so perverting the power of his place and authority.
. . 1710 J. Addison Tatler No. 162. ¶1 In my younger Years I used many Endeavours to get a Place at Court.
1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones III. vii. viii. 61 Good Servants need not want Places . . ‘
……………...
Re: ‘ . . in order to the engrossing (of) it . . ’
‘engross, v. < Anglo-Norman engrosser
I. To write in large.
1. a. trans. To write in large letters; chiefly, and now almost exclusively, to write in a peculiar character appropriate to legal documents; hence, to write out or express in legal form. Also absol.
. . 1632 in S. R. Gardiner Rep. Cases Star Chamber & High Comm. (1886) 164 Bampton and his wife brought their answere readie drawen to him and desired him to engrosse it.
1664–5 S. Pepys Diary II. 337 The story of the several Archbishops of Canterbury, engrossed in vellum . . ‘