Via Negativa

Up and by coach to Westminster, and there solicited W. Joyce’s business again; and did speake to the Duke of Yorke about it, who did understand it very well. I afterwards did without the House fall in company with my Lady Peters, and endeavoured to mollify her; but she told me she would not, to redeem her from hell, do any thing to release him; but would be revenged while she lived, if she lived the age of Methusalem.
I made many friends, and so did others. At last it was ordered by the Lords that it should be referred to the Committee of Privileges to consider. So I, after discoursing with the Joyces, away by coach to the ‘Change; and there, among other things, do hear that a Jew hath put in a policy of four per cent. to any man, to insure him against a Dutch warr for four months; I could find in my heart to take him at this offer, but however will advise first, and to that end took coach to St. James’s, but Mr. Coventry was gone forth, and I thence to Westminster Hall, where Mrs. Lane was gone forth, and so I missed of my intent to be with her this afternoon, and therefore meeting Mr. Blagrave, went home with him, and there he and his kinswoman sang, but I was not pleased with it, they singing methought very ill, or else I am grown worse to please than heretofore. Thence to the Hall again, and after meeting with several persons, and talking there, I to Mrs. Hunt’s (where I knew my wife and my aunt Wight were about business), and they being gone to walk in the parke I went after them with Mrs. Hunt, who staid at home for me, and finding them did by coach, which I had agreed to wait for me, go with them all and Mrs. Hunt and a kinswoman of theirs, Mrs. Steward, to Hide Parke, where I have not been since last year; where I saw the King with his periwigg, but not altered at all; and my Lady Castlemayne in a coach by herself, in yellow satin and a pinner on; and many brave persons. And myself being in a hackney and full of people, was ashamed to be seen by the world, many of them knowing me.
Thence in the evening home, setting my aunt at home, and thence we sent for a joynt of meat to supper, and thence to the office at 11 o’clock at night, and so home to bed.

we fall from hell
into a committee meeting

grave thought grown worse
for talking about it

I hide where I have not been
in the altered yellow world

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 18 April 1664.

(Lord’s day). Up, and I put on my best cloth black suit and my velvet cloake, and with my wife in her best laced suit to church, where we have not been these nine or ten weeks. The truth is, my jealousy hath hindered it, for fear she should see Pembleton. He was here to-day, but I think sat so as he could not see her, which did please me, God help me! mightily, though I know well enough that in reason this is nothing but my ridiculous folly. Home to dinner, and in the afternoon, after long consulting whether to go to Woolwich or no to see Mr. Falconer, but indeed to prevent my wife going to church, I did however go to church with her, where a young simple fellow did preach: I slept soundly all the sermon, and thence to Sir W. Pen’s, my wife and I, there she talking with him and his daughter, and thence with my wife walked to my uncle Wight’s and there supped, where very merry, but I vexed to see what charges the vanity of my aunt puts her husband to among her friends and nothing at all among ours. Home and to bed.
Our parson, Mr. Mills, his owne mistake in reading of the service was very remarkable, that instead of saying, “We beseech thee to preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth,” he cries, “Preserve to our use our gracious Queen Katherine.”

I put on my best velvet ear
but God is nothing

but the simple sound
of our own mistake

in reading the remarkable
fruits of the earth

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 17 April 1664.

Up betimes, and after my father’s eating something, I walked out with him as far as Milk Streete, he turning down to Cripplegate to take coach; and at the end of the streete I took leave, being much afeard I shall not see him here any more, he do decay so much every day, and so I walked on, there being never a coach to be had till I came to Charing Cross, and there Col. Froud took me up and carried me to St. James’s, where with Mr. Coventry and Povy, &c., about my Lord Peterborough’s accounts, but, Lord! to see still what a puppy that Povy is with all his show is very strange. Thence to Whitehall and W. C. and I and Sir W. Rider resolved upon a day to meet and make an end of all the business.
Thence walked with Creed to the Coffee-house in Covent Garden, where no company, but he told me many fine experiments at Gresham College; and some demonstration that the heat and cold of the weather do rarify and condense the very body of glasse, as in a bolt head with cold water in it put into hot water, shall first by rarifying the glasse make the water sink, and then when the heat comes to the water makes that rise again, and then put into cold water makes the water by condensing the glass to rise, and then when the cold comes to the water makes it sink, which is very pretty and true, he saw it tried.
Thence by coach home, and dined above with my wife by her bedside, she keeping her bed, those being upon her. So to the office, where a great conflict with Wood and Castle about their New England masts?
So in the evening my mind a little vexed, but yet without reason, for I shall prevail, I hope, for the King’s profit, and so home to supper and to bed.

some far ripple shall decay
so much every day

and make an end of us
rarefy the very body of glass

bolt head cold
as an old castle

a land without reason
shall prevail

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 14 April 1664.