Michaela

Annotations and comments

Michaela has posted 40 annotations/comments since 19 March 2021.

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Third Reading

About Saturday 18 February 1659/60

Michaela  •  Link

On starting the diary the second time around (for me) it’s interesting to note how innocent and chaste Sam seems at this point of the diary. No leering or groping mentioned anywhere, and he seems slightly disgusted rather than titillated by Looker’s anecdote.
Was this because he is emerging from a society where licentiousness was frowned on, or just because it was before he had decided to write about that part of his life in his diary?
I personally suspect the former - it must have been difficult to resist joining in with the new wild ways when presented with examples everywhere, women seemingly available and willing (in his opinion), and probably more provocatively dressed than before - not to mentioned hot theatres pressed up close with the ribald audience and with orange girls around offering their wares.

About What happens to this website after the diary ends

Michaela  •  Link

London Lynn, I have had a similar experience to you! I have the abridged paperback, but found it disappointing and found this wonderful online version which has made Sam seem like a living man again, someone I know well.
I can’t quite remember when I started, possibly during Covid or later, but Sam has become part of my life. Now in April of the final year I’m so grateful to Phil and the contributors for giving us Sam the man - and it’s fascinating to read comments which are in some cases becoming a kind of historical archive on the time they were written. When I start again it will be 20 years since the first ones were added.

About Friday 23 April 1669

Michaela  •  Link

Sam isn’t a sociopath, we can see that clearly from what he tells us about his feelings - remember how movingly he wrote about the great fire, and his love for Elizabeth.
The format of a diary inevitably presents the writer in a self-centred way, and because he is so honest about his motives and behaviour, we see the best and worst of him. Others have admitted they would find it difficult to be so honest about themselves. We are all selfish, devious and unfair sometimes, just like Sam.
I would say that Sam is very generous in nature, he always gives his guests a good meal and enjoys doing so. He lent out his horses just the other day and he pays his servants generously. Admittedly he always used to have the underlying fear of returning to poverty which made him reluctant to pay out sometimes, but maybe that was common sense.
It’s true that he used to behave coercively with Bess when he was younger, but that seems to have faded away with his guilt about Deb and possibly because the fear of poverty has receded.

His attitude to women is absolutely awful, but Sam wouldn’t be like that if he had grown up in our world (that’s not to say he wouldn’t have had an affair though) and like you I kind of hope that Bess is giving his a bit of his own medicine. We’re only human after all.

About Wednesday 9 December 1668

Michaela  •  Link

That must be it! I was trying to picture his view of the fields. In the print from 1725 they weren’t far from Southampton Square

About Saturday 19 December 1668

Michaela  •  Link

I don’t think that Sam feels resentful towards Elizabeth, he really loves her and his amorous intentions with other women and even Deb ran parallel to that. He had been able to compartmentalise them so well that he hadn’t even realised what the effect of finding out would have on her. It was mostly just a form of entertainment to him.
It was a great shock to him to witness how she suffered - he didn’t blame her for making his life difficult or complain about feeling controlled - he felt terrible for causing her pain.
He seems to be enjoying spending time with Elizabeth now, talking for ages about common interests, sleeping together, going out. I think he is also enjoying the sensation of blameless enjoyment - knowing there’s nothing to be caught out about.
Obviously a leopard doesn’t change its spots, and he won’t stop being titillated by sitting g near a pretty woman - but now he thinks more about not hurting Elizabeth’s feelings than allowing his mind to run on it.
I don’t doubt though, if it could be completely guaranteed that he could enjoy another woman without Bess finding out, he would be sorely tempted, but the shame afterwards would be bitter.

About Wednesday 9 December 1668

Michaela  •  Link

I’m a bit confused; where did Mr Spong live? Sam found him in Southampton market which seems quite a long way from The Bull Inn in Bishopsgate. Did they take him to his chamber near the Bull there, or was it another Bull Inn near the market?

About Monday 9 November 1668

Michaela  •  Link

Thank you Vincent for posting that link to Simon Roper’s accents through the ages - a favourite of mine, but I hadn’t listened to it for a while.

About Sunday 20 September 1668

Michaela  •  Link

How old would Mrs Turner be at this time? I know she died in 1685, but not when she was born. She already had a son who wasn’t a child near the beginning of the diary, and her teeth weren’t good. I just didn’t expect her to be Pepys type.

About Tuesday 8 September 1668

Michaela  •  Link

“She shall have music wherever she goes”

“She shall” in the old nursery rhyme certainly appears to express a simple future fact, or even a prediction - today we would prefer to use will. Nowadays Shall tends only to be obvious /visible in questions with I or we to express an offer or a suggestion.

I feel that Pepys is using it as a future fact - which could also be inferred as a firm decision by him, making Bess’s plans for her.

Also: “Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!” Mind you, that might only be how I remember the story rather than a quotation.

About Tuesday 26 May 1668

Michaela  •  Link

Interesting that it seems quite unexceptional in Sam’s time to persuade a stranger to read aloud from her book for your entertainment; I wonder what would happen if I asked someone to do that for me the next time I’m on a train?

About Saturday 4 April 1668

Michaela  •  Link

Thank you Mary for explaining about “an”. As a child I was puzzled by the rhyme because it was written in my book as “if ifs and ands…”

Second Reading

About Saturday 15 February 1667/68

Michaela  •  Link

Dawn suggested that Elizabeth might have endometriosis - I’ve just been listening to Hilary Mantel’s autobiography on Radio 4 “Giving up the ghost” and she suffered horribly with this. If it’s what Elizabeth had, I hate to imagine the agony she must have gone through in her times.

About Wednesday 23 October 1667

Michaela  •  Link

I wonder if Pepys has bought a new watch recently? Today he seems fairly precise in mentioning the time: “ there staid till two o’clock” and “ Here mighty merry (there being a good deal of good company) for a quarter of an hour”

About Thurday 16 August 1666

Michaela  •  Link

I can’t find any previous insinuation by Sam that Nan was admiral Penn’s mistress. He warned that Creed wouldn’t be interested in marrying her because she doesn’t have money, and he says that she’s pretty, but those seem to be his only comments. Have I missed it?

About Monday 31 July 1665

Michaela  •  Link

I also remember the Raising the Body ritual, I was also around 10 years old at a new school. The girls were friendly and invited me to take part as one of the lifters, I was amazed how easy it was to lift the “body”. It really seemed like magic. I had forgotten about it until now - it would have been in 1972, almost 300 years after Mr Brisband’s experience.

About Thursday 20 July 1665

Michaela  •  Link

It’s fascinating to read very logical opinions about how insouciant Sam’s behaviour was towards the plague danger - I would have agreed in 2008, but now, after our own plague, I feel we are seeing another proof that despite 357 years having passed, human behaviour has changed very little. Until we truly face the reality of imminent doom we have a sense of invincibility, that things like that only happen to other people.