This week in 1663 Sam Pepys has been deeply concerned about a lack of wind and stools and about the untidiness of his home. To make matters worse on October 11 his wife Elizabeth "forebore to make herself clean to-day, but continued in a sluttish condition".
I made the mistake of bringing the topic up over our own evening meal at home the other night and V rather curtly reminded me that she did not "want a four hundred-year-old git interrupting her dinner" with his bowel movements.
Later on we discussed the ways in which my biography and interests have tracked those of the famous diarist:
- Same school
- Same university (though not same college)
- Regular trips up and down the river
- Great fondness for Greenwich park
- Avid collector of books
I don't go to the theatre as regularly as Sam did...but then we have movies now.
Nor do I molest little girls in churches during my lunch break.
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