Via Negativa

To the Privy Seal in the morning, but my Lord did not come, so I went with Captain Morrice at his desire into the King’s Privy Kitchen to Mr. Sayres, the Master Cook, and there we had a good slice of beef or two to our breakfast, and from thence he took us into the wine cellar where, by my troth, we were very merry, and I drank too much wine, and all along had great and particular kindness from Mr. Sayres, but I drank so much wine that I was not fit for business, and therefore at noon I went and walked in Westminster Hall a while, and thence to Salisbury Court play house, where was acted the first time “‘Tis pity Shee’s a Whore,” a simple play and ill acted, only it was my fortune to sit by a most pretty and most ingenious lady, which pleased me much.
Thence home, and found Sir Williams both and much more company gone to the Dolphin to drink the 30s. that we got the other day of Sir W. Pen about his tankard. Here was Sir R. Slingsby, Holmes, Captn. Allen, Mr. Turner, his wife and daughter, my Lady Batten, and Mrs. Martha, &c., and an excellent company of fiddlers; so we exceeding merry till late; and then we begun to tell Sir W. Pen the business, but he had been drinking to-day, and so is almost gone, that we could not make him understand it, which caused us more sport. But so much the better, for I believe when he do come to understand it he will be angry, he has so talked of the business himself and the letter up and down that he will be ashamed to be found abused in it. So home and to bed.

in the wine cellar
we bury time

a simple tune gone
to drink and fiddlers

and the gun
we make believe
will talk to us

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 9 September 1661.

At the office all the morning. At noon Mr. Moore dined with me, and then in comes Wm. Joyce to answer a letter of mine I wrote this morning to him about a maid of his that my wife had hired, and she sent us word that she was hired to stay longer with her master, which mistake he came to clear himself of; and I took it very kindly. So I having appointed the young ladies at the Wardrobe to go with them to a play to-day, I left him and my brother Tom who came along with him to dine, and my wife and I took them to the Theatre, where we seated ourselves close by the King, and Duke of York, and Madame Palmer, which was great content; and, indeed, I can never enough admire her beauty. And here was “Bartholomew Fayre,” with the puppet-show, acted to-day, which had not been these forty years (it being so satyricall against Puritanism, they durst not till now, which is strange they should already dare to do it, and the King do countenance it), but I do never a whit like it the better for the puppets, but rather the worse.
Thence home with the ladies, it being by reason of our staying a great while for the King’s coming, and the length of the play, near nine o’clock before it was done, and so in their coach home, and still in discontent with my wife, to bed, and rose so this morning also.

no answer to a word
as red as war

we can act like puppets
or be still

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 7 September 1661.

This morning my uncle Fenner by appointment came and drank his morning draft with me, and from thence he and I go to see my aunt Kite (my wife holding her resolution to go this morning as she resolved yesterday, and though there could not be much hurt in it, yet my own jealousy put a hundred things into my mind, which did much trouble me all day), whom we found in bed and not like to live as we think, and she told us her mind was that if she should die she should give all she had to her daughter, only 5l. apiece to her second husband’s children, in case they live to come out of their apprenticeships, and that if her daughter should die before marrying, then 10l. to be divided between Sarah Kite’s children and the rest as her own daughter shall dispose of it, and this I set down that I may be able to swear in case there should be occasion.
From thence to an alehouse while it rained, which kept us there I think above two hours, and at last we were fain to go through the rainy street home, calling on his sister Utbert and drank there. Then I home to dinner all alone, and thence my mind being for my wife’s going abroad much troubled and unfit for business, I went to the Theatre, and saw “Elder Brother” ill acted; that done, meeting here with Sir G. Askew, Sir Theophilus Jones, and another Knight, with Sir W. Pen, we to the Ship tavern, and there staid and were merry till late at night, and so got a coach, and Sir Wm. and I home, where my wife had been long come home, but I seemed very angry, as indeed I am, and did not all night show her any countenance, neither before nor in bed, and so slept and rose discontented.

this morning I am
holding on to hurt

a hundred thin children
in the hips of a rose

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 6 September 1661.

To the Privy Seal this morning about business, in my way taking leave of my mother, who goes to Brampton to-day. But doing my business at the Privy Seal pretty soon, I took boat and went to my uncle Fenner’s, and there I found my mother and my wife and Pall (of whom I had this morning at my own house taken leave, and given her 20s. and good counsel how to carry herself to my father and mother), and so I took them, it being late, to Beard’s, where they were staid for, and so I put them into the waggon, and saw them going presently, Pall crying exceedingly. Then in with my wife, my aunt Bell and Charles Pepys, whom we met there, and drank, and so to my uncle Fenner’s to dinner (in the way meeting a French footman with feathers, who was in quest of my wife, and spoke with her privately, but I could not tell what it was, only my wife promised to go to some place to-morrow morning, which do trouble my mind how to know whither it was), where both his sons and daughters were, and there we were merry and dined.
After dinner news was brought that my aunt Kite, the butcher’s widow in London, is sick ready to die and sends for my uncle and me to come to take charge of things, and to be entrusted with the care of her daughter. But I through want of time to undertake such a business, I was taken up by Antony Joyce, which came at last to very high words, which made me very angry, and I did not think that he would ever have been such a fool to meddle with other people’s business, but I saw he spoke worse to his father than to me and therefore I bore it the better, but all the company was offended with him, so we parted angry he and I, and so my wife and I to the fair, and I showed her the Italians dancing the ropes, and the women that do strange tumbling tricks and so by foot home vexed in my mind about Antony Joyce.

I put on my feathers
in quest of some tomorrow

no butchers ready
to clean things up

high words dancing
in my mind

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 5 September 1661.