Tuesday 27 February 1665/66
Up, and after a harsh word or two my wife and I good friends, and so up and to the office, where all the morning. At noon late to dinner, my wife gone out to Hales’s about her picture, and, after dinner, I after her, and do mightily like her picture, and think it will be as good as my Lady Peters’s. So home mightily pleased, and there late at business and set down my three last days’ journalls, and so to bed, overjoyed to thinke of the pleasure of the last Sunday and yesterday, and my ability to bear the charge of these pleasures, and with profit too, by obliging my Lord, and reconciling Sir George Carteret’s family.
10 Annotations
First Reading
Australian Susan • Link
aren't we pleased with ourselves today.
wish we knew what the "harsh word or two" was about. The domestic detail is so fascinating. Probably betraying my trivial mind here, but I've had a tiring week, so seize on little things to amuse.
Todd Bernhardt • Link
Not an exceedingly busy day, which is one reason we get so much detail about Sunday and Monday, I think. I was wondering about this as I originally read those entries -- I thought that he might have had a bit more time than usual to collect and record his thoughts.
Lawrence • Link
Me to Australian Susan, credit crunch makes some of us busy servicing after care for company's feeling the pinch, but my point here is...
"At noon late to dinner"
Late?, I don't call that late for Dinner? maybe Sam is having a tiring week?
Mary • Link
late to dinner
Had Elizabeth warned him that dinner would be early because she had to get to Hales's studio? Sam, nevertheless, was late and found that his wife had already departed. Having eaten, he then hurried after her.
Robert Gertz • Link
"Up and after a harsh word or two,..." Oooh, Sam...Never sleep on a quarrel.
Lawrence • Link
Yes that makes sense Mary! mind? he's lucky his dinner wasn't in the dog, after the harsh word or two?
Sean Adams • Link
"harsh word or two"
I imagine the harsh words were the result of Sam's being woken up last night by the quarrel between Liz and Mercer.
jeannine • Link
"a harsh word or two"
This really is a delightful little understatement. I am pretty sure there were a lot more that 1-2 words spoken, but if limited to a real word or two I can imagine some unprintable little ditties that could have passed between Sam and Elizabeth!
Anyone know where the phrase 'a word or two' came from?
cgs • Link
long citation more than a word or two...
OED.
c. A (short or slight) utterance, statement, or remark; a brief speech or conversation.
Esp. as a word; similarly a word or two, a couple of words.
[OE West Saxon Gospels: Luke (Corpus Cambr.) xx. 3 Ic ahsige eow an word [L. unum verbum], andswaria{edh} me, wæs Iohannes fulluht of heofone? lOE St. Margaret (Corpus Cambr.)
166 Ac ic {th}e bidde, eadige fæmne, {th}æt ic wi{edh} {th}e an word dælan mote.]
c1405 (c1390) CHAUCER Pardoner's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 302 Now wol I speke of oothes false and grete A word or two, as olde bokes trete.
...
1660 R. COKE Elem. Power & Subj. V. iv. 266* in Justice Vindic., It will not be amisse before I conclude to add a word or two in vindication of Sir Edward Coke.
1726 SWIFT Gulliver I. II. iii. 52, I entreated to be heard a Word or two. .....
Second Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
From time to time we have annotations, but not Diary mentions, about the dangers of the use of mercury and experiments in alchemy.
On this day:
Dr. Thomas Vaughan (1622-1666), the alchemist and mystic, and the younger twin brother of Henry Vaughan he "Silurist," appears to have had some employment of state, but he continued his favorite studies and died from the fumes of mercury at the house of Samuel Kern at Albury, Surrey (near Guildford) on 27 February, 1666.
Dr. Vaughan regarded himself as a philosopher of nature, and although he certainly sought the universal solvent, his published writings deal rather with magic and mysticism than with technical alchemy. They also contain much controversy with Henry More the Platonist. Vaughan was called a Rosicrucian, but denied the imputation.
Dr. Vaughan wrote or translated Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650); most of these pamphlets appeared under the pseudonym of Eugenius Philalethes:
Anima Magica Abscondita (1650);
Magia Adamica and Coelum Terrae (1650);
The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap (1650);
The Second Wash; or the Moor Scoured once more (1651);
Lumen de Lumine and Aphorisimi Magici Eugeniani (1651);
The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R.C. (1652);
Aula Lucis (1652);
Euphrates (1655);
Nollius' Chymist's Key (1657);
A Brief Natural History (1669).
Dr. Thomas Vaughan was probably not the famous adept known as Eirenaeus Philalethes, who was alleged to have found the philosopher's stone in America, and to whom the Introitus Apertus in Occlusum Regis Palatium (1667) and other writings are ascribed.
But he might have been.
http://www.theodora.com/encyclope…