Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 56: August 1667
Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 56: August 1667
Translated by Mynors Bright
August 1667: the Dutch have just raided the Medway, burned English ships at Chatham, and peace hangs in the air like a bad smell. Samuel Pepys, naval administrator and inveterate scribbler of secrets, records it all with the same anxious energy he brings to his wife's jealousy, his theatre tickets, and his recurring nightmares about being poor. This volume finds him navigating the aftermath of England's humiliation at Dutch hands, dodging political enemies at the Admiralty, and sneaking ever closer to the wife of a friend he calls 'my pretty girl'. Pepys is the original unreliable narrator who knows he's unreliable: he lies to his diary, he lies to himself, and somehow the lies make his candor more devastating. Three centuries before the confessional podcast, this neurotic, ambitious, occasionally monstrous man sat in the dark and wrote the truth about himself. No other diary in English comes close. It's not a window onto the 1660s. It's a mirror.
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“Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.””
— Samuel Pepys
“The truth is, I do indulge myself a little the more in pleasure, knowing that this is the proper age of my life to do it; and, out of my observation that most men that do thrive in the world do forget to take pleasure during the time that they are getting their estate, but reserve that till they have got one, and then it is too late for them to enjoy it.””
— Samuel Pepys
“He that will not stoop for a pin will never be worth a pound.””
— Samuel Pepys
“And so to bed.””
— Samuel Pepys
“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. Against which, whenever it shall be, good God fit us all!””
— Samuel Pepys
“I find it a hard matter to settle to business after so much leisure and pleasure.””
— Samuel Pepys
“Now public business takes up so much of my time that I must get time a Sundays or a nights to look after my own matters.””
— Samuel Pepys
“neighbour of ours, Mr. Hollworthy, a very able man, is also dead by a fall in the country from his horse, his foot hanging in the stirrup, and his brains beat out.””
— Samuel Pepys
“I saw the girl of the house, being very pretty, go into a chamber, and I went in after her and kissed her.””
— Samuel Pepys
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Pepys, Samuel. Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 56: August 1667. Lex, lex-books.com/book/diary-of-samuel-pepys-volume-56-august-1667-4df12089-c3ab-4f32-b50f-80898b86b38f.Pepys, S. (n.d.). Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 56: August 1667. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/diary-of-samuel-pepys-volume-56-august-1667-4df12089-c3ab-4f32-b50f-80898b86b38fPepys, Samuel. Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 56: August 1667. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/diary-of-samuel-pepys-volume-56-august-1667-4df12089-c3ab-4f32-b50f-80898b86b38f.
