Todd Bernhardt

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Todd Bernhardt has posted 946 annotations/comments since 8 January 2003.

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First Reading

About Saturday 31 January 1662/63

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"they were so false spelt that I was ashamed of them, and took occasion to fall out about them with my wife, and so she wrote none"

The classic relationship power struggle. If you'd just helped her, Sam, she wouldn't have gotten all huffy and refused to do it at all! As you acknowledge ("however, I was sorry"), your loss, pal.

First time he's referred to Lady Jem as "Madam," isn't it? Is it possible that she's not writing to the Montagu ladies, but instead to her prospective companion and her mother? (But the PC's mother wouldn't rate a "my Lady," would she?)

About Thursday 29 January 1662/63

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re: No commentary?

Yeah, I know what you mean, LH -- Sam's usually circumspect about their dalliances, but this seems pretty forthright. I wonder if her later "sickness" has anything to do with their morning activities? (Given Elizabeth's "troubles"...)

Sam really doesn't like Minnes at all, does he? At least he seemed to enjoy the Sir Williams at the beginning of his relationship with them, but he's never warmed up to Sir John.

About Tuesday 27 January 1662/63

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Right you are, Mr. Hamilton! (What was I thinking? Ah well, at least I got the first initial right.)

Jeannine, you crack me up! Have you been spying on my post-Halloween visits to my kids' candy cache? :-)

About Tuesday 27 January 1662/63

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May I suggest a compromise?

Sam is a complicated, intelligent person full of contradictions, perfectly capable of holding two opposing concepts in his mind at once (which is the mark of a great mind, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald). I think our man on the $20 bill (A. Hamilton) is very close in his assessment of Sam, in saying that he deplores large-scale graft, and indeed we've seen many examples of Sam's indignation about those who do not seek value for the "King's money."

But, also as Mr. Hamilton points out, Sam is not above earning a fee or three, and so I wonder if where he draws the line on what he considers corruption is a matter of scale. If so, I think it still could be likely that he was in cahoots with Creed over the six months' pay issue -- perhaps Sam views this as small-scale stuff, akin to a modern worker padding their expense account a bit. As such, he would view it as *very* different to the level of greed involved in Lord Rutherford's "designs to have the profit of victualling of the garrison [for] himself."

About Monday 26 January 1662/63

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"and methinks I fear that I have some ill offices done to Mr. Coventry, or else he observes that of late I have not despatched business so as I did use to do, which I confess I do acknowledge"

Hey Sam, maybe it was that business of "guiding Mr. Coventry to sign a bill to Mr. Creed for his pay as Deputy Treasurer to this day, though the service ended 5 or 6 months ago"?

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Saturday 24 January 1662/63

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Actually, Mr. Wheatley, though I don't deny that Sam took a little extra off the top (to extend Bradford's barbershop analogy), I will say that you could read "bring me to something" in other than monetary terms -- Sam could well be talking (as he already has, multiple times) about how minding his business will bring him status as well as wealth.

About Friday 23 January 1662/63

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"Margenting"?

Writing annotations in the margins, perhaps?

And yeah, Terry, I was wondering exactly what it was the Sam almost made himself sick on at the coffeehouse ... actually, given that he has a very full morning and a very empty stomach before sitting down to a fish head (yum) with Billy Batten, he could have made himself "almost sick" on coffee ... especially the coffee of the time.

About Wednesday 21 January 1662/63

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re: time of the month

It looks to me as if Terry F was quoting from L&M's unexpurgated version, and so indeed Sam is saying that it was Elizabeth's time of the month. And, as Mary adds, her face may be puffy simply because she's been in pain and crying.

What I'd like to know is, did Mrs. Ackworth TOTALLY Rocke? :-)

About Saturday 17 January 1662/63

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I read this differently, Dirk. I agree with your reading up to getting Coventry to countersign the document, but then it seems to me that *Coventry* discovers his own error in signing the document ("he perceiving") and blots out his name. So, Sam's been caught by someone, as Bradford rightfully points out, whom he has a high regard for (and whose regard he covets).

This is the part that I don't understand, though: "but I will clear myself to him from design in it"

Is Sam saying that he's going to 'fess up to an honest mistake, or that he -- because of an agreement with Creed -- meant to cheat the King out of a half-year's wages for Creed, and will come up with a convincing lie to Coventry to "clear" himself? The fact that he goes out "clubbing" with Creed after this makes me think it may be the latter...

About Saturday 17 January 1662/63

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

So, is Sam "sorry for signing a bill and guiding Mr. Coventry to sign a bill to Mr. Creed for his pay as Deputy Treasurer" because he did it by mistake, or because he got caught?

About Wednesday 14 January 1662/63

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More *very* revealing info, Jeannine! I had assumed that our puzzlement over the intensity of this fight, and over Sam's actions, had much to do with our inability to empathize with the cultural mores of the day, but the quote above is a wonderful example of how a "good wife" was supposed to act, and provides one reason why Sam felt entirely justified in what he did. Indeed, the fact that he felt any remorse over it shows that he was ahead of his peers in his attitude toward relationships!

About Friday 16 January 1662/63

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re:
"I wonder if Sam seemed as uniformly humourless and paternal to his kin"

I don't know about this, Clement ... Sam's concern (that he is "troubled about my father’s concernments, and how things would be with them all if it should please God that I should die") seemed quite endearing to me. He obviously is the family's financial star and, given how quickly people could catch something fatal (or get hit by a speeding coach, etc.), he is justly concerned that they shouldn't simply rely on him for their security. Up to this point he's mainly talked in terms of self-interest, but this passage conveyed (to me, anyway) real concern for the well-being of his father "and them all."

About Thursday 15 January 1662/63

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re: call-books

Thanks, Pauline. That'll teach me to search for a term in all its derivations, including the singular! (Although, if I'd searched the annotations as well as the Diary, I would have found it in the plural.)

And Glyn, who'd you think I meant by "our boy"? ;-)

About Thursday 15 January 1662/63

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"and did our main business, which was to examine the proof of our new way of the call-books, which we think will be of great use"

Can anyone help with interpreting this?

A vexing evening for our boy ... Sam's *got* to come up with a system for keeping his keys nearby!

About Monday 12 January 1662/63

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One has to wonder why the boys came to blows ... maybe there was a bit of competition over whose master was better.

Wayneman: "Be that so? Well, *my* master says yours is a right rogue, and cannot keep his accounts in order!" *Bif* etc...

(Robert Gertz, feel free to step in...)

About Monday 12 January 1662/63

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re: "and here dined and our boys"

Reading this, it struck me that though Sam rarely mentions him, Wayneman is seldom far from Sam's side as he goes about his daily business. Given that Creed has his own boy with him, I suddenly came to the realization that such boys were the 17th century counterparts to today's Blackberries, Treos, Palms, etc.

The main difference being, I suppose, that when incompatibilities arise today between PDAs, we call tech support rather than basting them soundly! (Though there have been times when I've wanted to...)

About Sunday 11 January 1662/63

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re: “all the afternoon writing orders myself to have ready against to-morrow, that I might not appear negligent to Mr. Coventry.”

Or their regular Monday morning meeting with the Duke...

About Saturday 10 January 1662/63

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And whom you love, and thus hating yourself for it. So you throw yourself into your work to forget.

I have no doubt that Sam is a careerist, a Type A personality (takes one to know one, after all), and is feeling his oats and rising status when it comes to those around him, but I also think (and the Diary shows) that he loves Elizabeth and is full of self-doubt when it comes to his "poor wretch" and how he treated her. In times like this -- now as well as then! -- it's much easier to aggressively deal with the outside world than it is to look inside and acknowledge your weaknesses and mistakes.

About Saturday 10 January 1662/63

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Wow ... anyone else think that the cynicism running throughout today's entry has anything to do with the emotionally draining experience of yesterday?

Were I a psychologist -- or even if I only played one on TV -- I would posit that Sam is taking the anger he feels toward himself over the way he acted yesterday and directing it outward. No one in today's entry escapes his contempt.