Via Negativa

(Lord’s day). Up and to church, where a lazy sermon, and so home to dinner to a good piece of powdered beef, but a little too salt. At dinner my wife did propound my having of my sister Pall at my house again to be her woman, since one we must have, hoping that in that quality possibly she may prove better than she did before, which I take very well of her, and will consider of it, it being a very great trouble to me that I should have a sister of so ill a nature, that I must be forced to spend money upon a stranger when it might better be upon her, if she were good for anything.
After dinner I and she walked, though it was dirty, to White Hall (in the way calling at the Wardrobe to see how Mr. Moore do, who is pretty well, but not cured yet), being much afeard of being seen by anybody, and was, I think, of Mr. Coventry, which so troubled me that I made her go before, and I ever after loitered behind. She to Mr. Hunt’s, and I to White Hall Chappell, and then up to walk up and down the house, which now I am well known there, I shall forbear to do, because I would not be thought a lazy body by Mr. Coventry and others by being seen, as I have lately been, to walk up and down doing nothing. So to Mr. Hunt’s, and there was most prettily and kindly entertained by him and her, who are two as good people as I hardly know any, and so neat and kind one to another. Here we staid late, and so to my Lord’s to bed.

a lazy piece
of powdered beef

a salt cure
for a lazy body

doing nothing to eat
one another

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 4 January 1662/63.

Up and to the office all the morning, and dined alone with my wife at noon, and then to my office all the afternoon till night, putting business in order with great content in my mind. Having nothing now in my mind of trouble in the world, but quite the contrary, much joy, except only the ending of our difference with my uncle Thomas, and the getting of the bills well over for my building of my house here, which however are as small and less than any of the others. Sir W. Pen it seems is fallen very ill again.
So to my arithmetique again to-night, and so home to supper and to bed.

with all the nothing
now in the world

how small others seem
fallen to arithmetic

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 3 January 1662/63.

Lay long in bed, and so up and to the office, where all the morning alone doing something or another. So dined at home with my wife, and in the afternoon to the Treasury office, where Sir W. Batten was paying off tickets, but so simply and arbitrarily, upon a dull pretence of doing right to the King, though to the wrong of poor people (when I know there is no man that means the King less right than he, or would trouble himself less about it, but only that he sees me stir, and so he would appear doing something, though to little purpose), that I was weary of it. At last we broke up, and walk home together, and I to see Sir W. Pen, who is fallen sick again. I staid a while talking with him, and so to my office, practising some arithmetique, and so home to supper and bed, having sat up late talking to my poor wife with great content.

soup alone
in the afternoon

simply to stir
some little purpose

broke and sick
and having to eat

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 2 January 1662/63.

Lay with my wife at my Lord’s lodgings, where I have been these two nights, till 10 o’clock with great pleasure talking, then I rose and to White Hall, where I spent a little time walking among the courtiers, which I perceive I shall be able to do with great confidence, being now beginning to be pretty well known among them.
Then to my wife again, and found Mrs. Sarah with us in the chamber we lay in. Among other discourse, Mrs. Sarah tells us how the King sups at least four or [five] times every week with my Lady Castlemaine; and most often stays till the morning with her, and goes home through the garden all alone privately, and that so as the very centrys take notice of it and speak of it.
She tells me, that about a month ago she quickened at my Lord Gerard’s at dinner, and cried out that she was undone; and all the lords and men were fain to quit the room, and women called to help her.
In fine, I find that there is nothing almost but bawdry at Court from top to bottom, as, if it were fit, I could instance, but it is not necessary; only they say my Lord Chesterfield, groom of the stole to the Queen, is either gone or put away from the Court upon the score of his lady’s having smitten the Duke of York, so as that he is watched by the Duchess of York, and his lady is retired into the country upon it. How much of this is true, God knows, but it is common talk.
After dinner I did reckon with Mrs. Sarah for what we have eat and drank here, and gave her a crown, and so took coach, and to the Duke’s House, where we saw “The Villaine” again; and the more I see it, the more I am offended at my first undervaluing the play, it being very good and pleasant, and yet a true and allowable tragedy. The house was full of citizens, and so the less pleasant, but that I was willing to make an end of my gaddings, and to set to my business for all the year again tomorrow. Here we saw the old Roxalana in the chief box, in a velvet gown, as the fashion is, and very handsome, at which I was glad.
Hence by coach home, where I find all well, only Sir W. Pen they say ill again. So to my office to set down these two or three days’ journall, and to close the last year therein, and so that being done, home to supper, and to bed, with great pleasure talking and discoursing with my wife of our late observations abroad.

beginning again
the show and tell

as we all watch
a common crow

set the year in a box
as if down to the last one

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 1 January 1662/63.