Via Negativa

(Lord’s day). Up, and troubled at a distaste my wife took at a small thing that Jane did, and to see that she should be so vexed that I took part with Jane, wherein I had reason; but by and by well again, and so my wife in her best gown and new poynt that I bought her the other day, to church with me, where she has not been these many weeks, and her mayde Jane with her. I was troubled to see Pembleton there, but I thought it prudence to take notice myself first of it and show my wife him, and so by little and little considering that it mattered not much his being there I grew less concerned and so mattered it not much, and the less when, anon, my wife showed me his wife, a pretty little woman, and well dressed, with a good jewel at her breast. The parson, Mr. Mills, I perceive, did not know whether to pray for the Queen or no, and so said nothing about her; which makes me fear she is dead. But enquiring of Sir J. Minnes, he told me that he heard she was better last night.
So home to dinner, and Tom came and dined with me, and so, anon, to church again, and there a simple coxcomb preached worse than the Scot, and no Pembleton nor his wife there, which pleased me not a little, and then home and spent most of the evening at Sir W. Pen’s in complaisance, seeing him though he deserves no respect from me.
This evening came my uncle Wight to speak with me about my uncle Thomas’s business, and Mr. Moore came, 4 or 5 days out of the country and not come to see me before, though I desired by two or three messengers that he would come to me as soon as he came to town. Which do trouble me to think he should so soon forget my kindness to him, which I am afraid he do. After walking a good while in the garden with these, I went up again to Sir W. Pen, and took my wife home, and after supper to prayers, and read very seriously my vowes, which I am fearful of forgetting by my late great expenses, but I hope in God I do not, and so to bed.

I took apart my own point
by little and little

I grew less and less dead
old as a simple ache

evening came by messenger
into the garden of forgetting

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 October 1663.

Up and to my office, and there we sat a very full board all the morning upon some accounts of Mr. Gauden’s. Here happened something concerning my Will which Sir W. Batten would fain charge upon him, and I heard him mutter something against him of complaint for his often receiving people’s money to Sir G. Carteret, which displeased me much, but I will be even with him.
Thence to the Dolphin Tavern, and there Mr. Gauden did give us a great dinner. Here we had some discourse of the Queen’s being very sick, if not dead, the Duke and Duchess of York being sent for betimes this morning to come to White Hall to her.
So to my office and there late doing business, and so home to supper, my house being got mighty clean to my great content from top to toe, and so to bed, myself beginning to be in good condition of health also, but only my laying out so much money upon clothes for myself and wife and her closet troubles me.

something will mutter
something will be to eat

in some sick if not dead
time to come

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 17 October 1663.

Up and to my office, where all the morning doing business, and at noon home to dinner, and then up to remove my chest and clothes up stairs to my new wardrobe, that I may have all my things above where I lie, and so by coach abroad with my wife, leaving her at my Lord’s till I went to the Tangier Committee, where very good discourse concerning the Articles of peace to be continued with Guyland, and thence took up my wife, and with her to her tailor’s, and then to the Exchange and to several places, and so home and to my office, where doing some business, and then home to supper and to bed.

at noon I move
to my new war

that I may have
my thin lie still

I commit every discourse
concerning peace

tin wit with her tail
doing me in

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 16 October 1663.

Up, I bless God being now in pretty good condition, but cannot come to make natural stools yet; and going to enjoy my wife this morning, I had a very great pain in the end of my yard when my yard was stiff, as if I strained some nerve or vein, which was great pain to me.
So up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon dined at home, my head full of business, and after stepping abroad to buy a thing or two, compasses and snuffers for my wife, I returned to my office and there mighty busy till it was late, and so home well contented with the business that I had done this afternoon, and so to supper and to bed.

I cannot make a tool
to enjoy this morning

trained on a head
full of compasses

if I turn it on
it is afternoon

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 15 October 1663.

Up and to my office, where all the morning, and part of it Sir J. Minnes spent, as he do every thing else, like a fool, reading the Anatomy of the body to me, but so sillily as to the making of me understand any thing that I was weary of him, and so I toward the ‘Change and met with Mr. Grant, and he and I to the Coffee-house, where I understand by him that Sir W. Petty and his vessel are coming, and the King intends to go to Portsmouth to meet it. Thence home and after dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlinson’s conduct, to the Jewish Synagogue: where the men and boys in their vayles, and the women behind a lattice out of sight; and some things stand up, which I believe is their Law, in a press to which all coming in do bow; and at the putting on their vayles do say something, to which others that hear him do cry Amen, and the party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing. And in the end they had a prayer for the King, which they pronounced his name in Portugall; but the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew. But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this. Away thence with my mind strongly disturbed with them, by coach and set down my wife in Westminster Hall, and I to White Hall, and there the Tangier Committee met, but the Duke and the Africa Committee meeting in our room, Sir G. Carteret; Sir W. Compton, Mr. Coventry, Sir W. Rider, Cuttance and myself met in another room, with chairs set in form but no table, and there we had very fine discourses of the business of the fitness to keep Sally, and also of the terms of our King’s paying the Portugees that deserted their house at Tangier, which did much please me, and so to fetch my wife, and so to the New Exchange about her things, and called at Thomas Pepys the turner’s and bought something there, and so home to supper and to bed, after I had been a good while with Sir W. Pen, railing and speaking freely our minds against Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, but no more than the folly of one and the knavery of the other do deserve.

all the anatomy
of the body out of sight

to the kiss the press
the every desire singing

but like people knowing
the true God

we imagine a whole world
absurdly set down in our room

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 14 October 1663. Unchanged from the first draft except for the arrangement of lines, in part because the Australian filmmaker Marie Craven made an excellent videopoem out of it.