terling humanist.
Indeed, he who loves himself, not in idle vanity, but with a plenitude of
knowledge, is the best equipped of all to love his neighbors. And
perhaps it is in this sense that charity may be most properly said to
begin at home. It does not matter what quality a person has: Pepys can
appreciate and love him for it. He "fills his eyes" with the beauty of
Lady Castlemaine; indeed, he may be said to dote upon the thought of her
for years; if a woman be good-looking and not painted, he will walk miles
to have another sight of her; and even when a lady by a mischance spat
upon his clothes, he was immediately consoled when he had observed that
she was pretty. But, on the other hand, he is delighted to see Mrs. Pett
upon her knees, and speaks thus of his Aunt James: "a poor, religious,
well-meaning, good soul, talking of nothing but God Almighty, and that
with so much innocence that mightily pleased me." He is taken with Pen's
merriment and loose songs, but not less taken with the sterling worth of
Coventry. He is jolly with a drunken sailor, but listens with interest
and patience, as he rides the Essex roads, to the story of a Quaker's
spiritual trials and convictions. He lends a critical ear to the
discourse of kings and royal dukes. He spends an evening at Vauxhall
with "Killigrew and young Newport--loose company," says he, "but worth a
man's being in for once, to know the nature of it, and their manner of
talk and lives." And when a rag-boy lights him home, he examines him
about his business and other ways of livelihood for destitute children.
This is almost half-way to the beginning of philanthropy; had it only
been the fashion, as it is at present, Pepys had perhaps been a man
famous for good deeds. And it is through this quality that he rises, at
times, superior to his surprising egotism; his interest in the love
affairs of others is, indeed, impersonal; he is filled with concern for
my Lady Castlemaine, whom he only knows by sight, shares in her very
jealousies, joys with her in her successes; and it is not untrue, however
strange it seems in his abrupt presentment, that he loved his maid Jane
because she was in love with his man Tom.

Let us hear him, for once, at length: "So the women and W. Hewer and I
walked upon the Downes, where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant
and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and
his little boy reading, far from any houses or s