Tuesday 2 December 1662

Before I went to the office my wife and I had another falling out about Sarah, against whom she has a deadly hate, I know not for what, nor can I see but she is a very good servant. Then to my office, and there sat all the morning, and then to dinner with my wife at home, and after dinner did give Jane a very serious lesson, against we take her to be our chamber-maid, which I spoke so to her that the poor girl cried and did promise to be very dutifull and carefull. So to the office, where we sat as Commissioners for the Chest, and so examined most of the old accountants to the Chest about it, and so we broke up, and I to my office till late preparing business, and so home, being cold, and this night first put on a wastecoate. So to bed.

21 Annotations

First Reading

tc  •  Link

Sarah and Jane

It's SO hard to find good help!

Terry F  •  Link

"did give Jane a very serious lesson, against we take her to be our chamber-maid"

What is the gist of the "lesson"
-- Did she learn who is Master? (surely she knew that before!)
-- Did she learn the the conseqences of failing to exercise the duties of chamber-maid?

Is this like hazing?
= a rite of passage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite… - a dressing down to be lifted up ~ promoted to a new social identity?
Are these tears of joy, or tears to which (as Sam'l supposes) she is reduced? Or tears with which she is manipulating him?

Is Sam'l a sap for tears? and does she know it?
(note that Bess isn't in the scene)

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

After stewing up a fit [...there sat all the morning...}and going over 'wot' be 'rong, Sarah, she is in a tizzy oover not being made the Mistress's confidante[y], so wot ,she can't dance , or sing a fine soprano, she dothe know how to rub me poor tootsies, lays out me best bibs well.AH! "...did give Jane a very serious lesson, against we take her to be our chamber-maid..."
"...Mistress needs no back lip , when ye be told to wring that neck of tha' there goose then DO IT. Ye will not get any more Pay, not a blank farthing more, but the status of being above the ground floor should be the reward in it of it self...."

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I'd guess Sam went into detail on how her performance would reflect on him and Bess, what a great responsibility it would be in helping his further advance, and how they might all find themselves back in Axe Yard or worse should she pull a repeat of the mocking of Lady Batten with his neighbors and guests, the enormous trust and confidence he and Bess were placing in her. Perhaps a reflective glance or two at Wayneman and how he, Sam has tried to overlook bad behavior...

Then again maybe the thought of trying to keep Bess happy...Or the length of Sam's lecture.

A. Hamilton  •  Link

where we sat as Commissioners for the Chest, and so examined most of the old accountants to the Chest about it

With Sir William Batten in nervous attendance, perhaps wondering how to discredit those old accountants?

Bob T  •  Link

Jane
When Jane assumes the duties of Chambermaid, she will see, and hear more intimate details of Mr. and Mrs. Sam's life than the other servants; it is a position of trust. Sam who is a "streamer" with the Navy, doesn't want her blabbing about anything that goes on in the house. Today, she would be required to sign all sorts of forms, but Sam just read the Riot Act to her. Afterwards she promised to be "dutifull and carefull"

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"did give Jane a very serious lesson"
"DISGRUNTLED MAID KILLS HER MASTER, SHEDULED TO BE HUNGED OR TRANSPORTED TO AMERICA OR AUSTRALIA.

wildtubes  •  Link

quote -
DISGRUNTLED MAID KILLS HER MASTER, SHEDULED TO BE HUNGED OR TRANSPORTED TO AMERICA OR AUSTRALIA.

Um, I don't think Austrailia has been discovered yet.
Certainly transportation to Australia will not start until the late 18th century.

language hat  •  Link

I think the more stringent rules of fact-checking are relaxed when it comes to jokes.

Terry F  •  Link

Mightn't it be a fact that "AUSTRALIA" is already a fictional name for the Antipodes at this time?

Jeannine  •  Link

"I think that the more stringent rules of fact-checking are relaxed when it comes to jokes."---from my own personal perspective and my own lackluster jokes, which tend to escape my typing fingers without due processing of my brain I do hope that this is true! Oooops, here's a perfect example now....

In regards to De Araujo's comment it is all a mute point becasue on Nov 25th Sam told us that "Great talk among people how some of the Fanatiques do say that the end of the world is at hand, and that next Tuesday is to be the day" and since we haven't heard from Australian Susan, who we know is ahead of us time zone wise then Australia is now gone anyway......

On a more interesting note (spoiler question here) I'll be interested to see how the Fanatiques respond when they find that the world doesn't end on Tuesday... do they just go on with their lives and predictions or do they break out the Kool-aid and take matters into their own hands?

Terry F  •  Link

AUSTRALIA was a place to which Sarah could be transported --
had she been turned over to a Dutch colonizer for an indefinite servitude in New Holland (which, after 1616. they called the area about the Gulf of Carpentaria, where they had landed in 1606) -- to save A. De Araujo's hash a bit; though, yes, as wildtubes notes, "A British penal colony was set up at Port Jackson (what is now Sydney) in 1788, and about 161,000 transported English convicts were settled there until the system was suspended in 1839." http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A01…

"The name Australia is derived from the Latin australis, meaning southern. Legends of an "unknown southern land" (terra australis incognita) date back to the Roman times and were commonplace in mediæval geography, but they were not based on any actual knowledge of the continent." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aust…

language hat  •  Link

So they could have just put her on a boat and pointed it south...

Terry F  •  Link

Goodbye, Sarah; so long, Jane.

JWB  •  Link

"Fanatiques respond"
Important not to take anti-fanatic propaganda for fanatic belief. The Fifth Monarchists did not believe in the imminent destruction of the world, but fought for the coming to power of the Saints, who would establish just government and welcome Jesus's second coming and His reign of a thousand years.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"Fanatiques respond"
"After the restoration officers of the New Model returned to their villages,or like Bunyan went to gaol.Levellers,Diggers,Ranters and Fifth Monarchists disappeared,leaving hardly a trace............,Fox disciplined the Quakers:they succumbed to the protestant ethic.Property triumphed.Bishops returned to a state church,the universities and tithe survived.Women were put back in their place. The island of Great Bedlam became the island of Great Britain"
Christopher Hill- The World Turned Upside Down.

Second Reading

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

There WAS transportation to the American and West Indies' colonies in Pepys' day!

James Morgan  •  Link

Quakers may have been disciplined by Fox, but they still continued to be imprisoned for disobedience and disrespect, as Pepys often notes, and of course continued to have women speaking and women leaders at their Meetings, so the reaction Christopher Hill describes is a bit over-stated.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

OED has:

‘Australian, n. and adj. < French australien, < Latin austrālis, in Terra Australis ‘southern land,’ the title given, from 16th cent., to the supposed continent and islands lying in the Great Southern Ocean, for which Australia was at length substituted . .
A. n. 1. A native of the Terra Australis, including Australasia, Polynesia, and ‘Magellanica’. Obs.
2. a. An Australian Aboriginal . .
1693 New Discov. Terra Incogn. Austral. 163 It is easie to judge of the incomparability of the Australians with the people of Europe . . ‘

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