Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon dined at home, being without any words friends with my wife, though last night I was very angry, and do think I did give her as much cause to be angry with me. After dinner I walked to Arundell House, the way very dusty, the day of meeting of the Society being changed from Wednesday to Thursday, which I knew not before, because the Wednesday is a Council-day, and several of the Council are of the Society, and would come but for their attending the King at Council; where I find much company, indeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con., it seems many being against it; and we do believe the town will be full of ballads of it. Anon comes the Duchesse with her women attending her; among others, the Ferabosco, of whom so much talk is that her lady would bid her show her face and kill the gallants. She is indeed black, and hath good black little eyes, but otherwise but a very ordinary woman I do think, but they say sings well. The Duchesse hath been a good, comely woman; but her dress so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I do not like her at all, nor did I hear her say any thing that was worth hearing, but that she was full of admiration, all admiration. Several fine experiments were shown her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors among others, of one that did, while she was there, turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare. Here was Mrs. Moore of Cambridge, whom I had not seen before, and I was glad to see her; as also a very pretty black boy that run up and down the room, somebody’s child in Arundell House. After they had shown her many experiments, and she cried still she was full of admiration, she departed, being led out and in by several Lords that were there; among others Lord George Barkeley and Earl of Carlisle, and a very pretty young man, the Duke of Somerset.
She gone, I by coach home, and there busy at my letters till night, and then with my wife in the evening singing with her in the garden with great pleasure, and so home to supper and to bed.
a home without any dust
would be full of lack
eyes like stones
turn into ore
as somebody’s child
experiments in the garden
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 30 May 1667.