Up, and all the morning busy at the office to my great content, attending to the settling of papers there that I may have the more rest in winter for my eyes by how much I do the more in the settling of all things in the summer by daylight. At noon home to dinner, where is brought home the espinette I bought the other day of Haward; costs me 5l.. So to St. James’s, where did our ordinary business with the Duke of York. So to Unthanke’s to my wife, and with her and Deb. to visit Mrs. Pierce, whom I do not now so much affect, since she paints. But stayed here a while, and understood from her how my Lady Duchesse of Monmouth is still lame, and likely always to be so, which is a sad chance for a young [lady] to get, only by trying of tricks in dancing. So home, and there Captain Deane come and spent the evening with me, to draw some finishing lines on his fine draught of “The Resolution,” the best ship, by all report, in the world, and so to bed. Wonderful hot all day and night, and this the first night that I remember in my life that ever I could lie with only a sheet and one rug. So much I am now stronger than ever I remember myself, at least since before I had the stone.
winter settling in my mouth
still and sad
you dancing
raw in the world
this first night that I ever
lie with a stone
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 15 July 1668