Annotations and comments

Edith Lank has posted 40 annotations/comments since 26 September 2013.

Comments

Second Reading

About Sunday 23 June 1661

Edith Lank  •  Link

Vincente -- I'm pretty sure that our Samuel does indeed tell himself all. Often with details. It's probably part of the pleasure -- re-reading and re-living whatever.

About Thursday 14 February 1660/61

Edith Lank  •  Link

As for Sam writing as any intelligent educated man of that era would -- one has only to read John Evelyn, a competent diarist, to appreciate Sam's remarkable gift not only with words, but with life itself.

About Thursday 14 February 1660/61

Edith Lank  •  Link

I believe that, having maneuvered so that the right person was the one you saw first on Valentine's Day, you were then obligated to buy a gift for your Valentine. Will that happen?

About Thursday 7 February 1660/61

Edith Lank  •  Link

In Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, pubished in 1811, John Willougby seduces Eliza, the ward of Colonel Brandon, who calls on Willougby to "meet by appointment", from which occasion "we returned unwouded."

About Friday 18 January 1660/61

Edith Lank  •  Link

Bookbinding -- I'm no expert on the 17th century but not a lot more than 100 years later, Jane Austen's books were issued "in boards" -- heavy cardboard covers -- with the understanding that the purchaser would then have them bound in leather -- maybe half or quarter leather -- in the owner's choice of colors and gilt lettering and decorations.

About Friday 11 January 1660/61

Edith Lank  •  Link

Malcolm says Sam allows others to see his weaknesses but indeed he doesn't. Not only is the diary in shorthand, but when it gets really interesting he lapses into a Spanish-French-Latin jargon as an extra precaution. Still, he may have had us in mind, given the care he took of the diaries and the provisions he made for them after his death.
As for his wife's viewpoint -- I believe someone has written a novel telling Elizabeth's story (note of course that Sam never mentions her first name.)

About Friday 21 December 1660

Edith Lank  •  Link

Giving a talk on Pepys one time, I mentioned the fact that Sam kept the stone and occasionally displayed it -- upon which someone in the audience got up and said he had seen that stone, somewhere in London...?

About Saturday 8 December 1660

Edith Lank  •  Link

smoked meat --
After he came to the States, my husband, who was born in Quebec, badly missed Montreal smoked meat. I understand it's only lightly smoked and doesn't travel well. It is indeed beef -- brisket.

About Friday 23 November 1660

Edith Lank  •  Link

In the US, landlords and sellers of properties built before 1978 must give potential tenants and buyers written alert about the possiblity of lead paint on the premises.

About Tuesday 13 November 1660

Edith Lank  •  Link

When I was first married, we had a gas oven with no thermostat, and some cook books in those days talked about opening the oven door and judging by how many seconds you could hold your hand in there. Lamentably subjective of course.

About Tuesday 30 October 1660

Edith Lank  •  Link

Posting this at 2:17 p m October 31 in Rochester NY. I realize that by the time I read your comments over here, it's usually too late to join the conversation -- but can someone tell me how come I'm seeing comments today bearing datelines for the second and even third week in November? Have I missed something?

About Thursday 18 October 1660

Edith Lank  •  Link

I remember my mother inspecting live chickens at the butcher's (sawdust on the floor, I realize now, to absorb stray blood?). She'd blow on the hind feathers to see how much fat was under the skin, make her selection, and hand the bird ofer to the butcher for the coup de grace and de-feathering. Those final pinfeathers, unfortunately, had to be removed at home over a flame on the gas stove. Fragrance from that operation so strong I'd duck out on the portch (known in Boston as the piazza) at that point.

About Tuesday 25 September 1660

Edith Lank  •  Link

That reference to drinking tee was quoted somewhere (too lazy to look it up) long before the Diary had been officially translated. As far as I know, nobody knows how this happened. Mystery.