Annotations and comments

Gerald Berg has posted 413 annotations/comments since 4 March 2013.

Comments

Second Reading

About Saturday 23 August 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Forget the King, Queen, pageant and glory. "(T)hat which pleased me best" was a pin up girl for the ages. Liz best return soon or Pepys may go blind.

About Wednesday 6 August 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

I gather when SP speaks of " Who... did yesterday morning walk in the garden with me" he is speaking of Batten but who is he writing this 'reminder' for? Seems an unusual way to write to one's self.

About Tuesday 5 August 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Considering how he kept an eye on the workman last time he had some renovations done on the house -- he hardly seems concerned for how they are working this time. What gives?

About Friday 1 August 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Poor SP being so condemned for thinking out loud when all he is doing is writing to himself! I suppose what he should do is get a prostitute, contract syphilis and then spread that all around the house. Either that, or a good raree show. Personally, I think he was just getting ready to attend the Onan O'Brien show later this night.

About Thursday 31 July 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

As this is where we speak of it. I avoid all R. Gertz and take Cumgranissalis with a very large grain of salt.

About Saturday 26 July 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

The reason for baptism as an adult is that Christ was baptised as an adult by John. Mennonites refer to the baptism of babies as the baptism of cats and dogs. Girls would be cats and boys, dogs I suppose.

About Wednesday 23 July 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Great pressures and Sam turns pettish. Small beer, personally I would be freaking out! Two houses under threat. House itself and the House of Work as I gather Sam is finished without Sandwich. Stress indeed.

About Wednesday 2 July 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Interesting way to write to oneself. Speaking of Mr. Davis who "when by and by I saw him" then, meeting him later has the meeting to which he just referred. Very novelistic one might say but (as a diary) to what purpose?

About Monday 23 June 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

I recall reading an account of moving logs on the Ontonabee River near Peterborough in Ontario in the early 19th century. These were massive tree trunks of 4-6 foot diameter. They would wait for winter snowfall and hitch a log to a team of horses and head out across country. The really tricky part was going downhill. The logs tended to get a momentum all their own so the reins were let loose and the horses were left to run for their lives as this massive log slid/rolled down the hill after them. Some didn't make it.

About Tuesday 17 June 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Doesn't Sam eventually have eye trouble and have to quit the diary altogether? Reading/writing at night under low wattage is a big mistake.

About Thursday 15 May 1662

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Hudson lost? No, he was found. Lost in self named Bay though, by a most unusual democratic process. The Hudson River did finally prove to be the way west for settlers however. Of course there was the little matter of a canal having to be built before that could happen.

About Thursday 20 March 1661/62

Gerald Berg  •  Link

How many days since SP's last drink till drunk cycle? All this year yet? Not that I think he should or anything like that but "as I wished to do so I do" is worthy and liberating. Well done Sam!

About Sunday 23 February 1661/62

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Pepy's missed Montaigne's essay on happiness--

Scilicet ultima semper
Exspectanda dies homini est; dicique beatus
Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet.
[“We should all look forward to our last day: no one can be called happy till he is dead and buried.”—Ovid, Met, iii. 135]

About Sunday 16 February 1661/62

Gerald Berg  •  Link

As I say to my English friends as it occurs so frequently in their speech "It's extraordinary how ordinary extraordinary is in England." And here it is as yet not limned.

About Monday 30 December 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

"...here I made them a foolish promise to give them one this day twelvemonth, and so for ever while I live, but I do not intend it. "

What's Sam up to here? Promises with no intent to keep. Forever and ever. Go figure!