he must read in
the book of Tobit or divert his mind with sly advances on the nearest
women. When he walked, it must be with a book in his pocket to beguile
the way in case the nightingales were silent; and even along the streets
of London, with so many pretty faces to be spied for and dignitaries to
be saluted, his trail was marked by little debts "for wine, pictures,
etc.," the true headmark of a life intolerant of any joyless passage.
He had a kind of idealism in pleasure; like the princess in the fairy
story, he was conscious of a rose-leaf out of place. Dearly as he loved
to talk, he could not enjoy nor shine in a conversation when he thought
himself unsuitably dressed. Dearly as he loved eating, he "knew not how
to eat alone"; pleasure for him must heighten pleasure; and the eye and
ear must be flattered like the palate ere he avow himself content. He
had no zest in a good dinner when it fell to be eaten "in a bad street
and in a periwig-maker's house"; and a collation was spoiled for him by
indifferent music. His body was indefatigable, doing him yeoman's
service in this breathless chase of pleasures. On April 11, 1662, he
mentions that he went to bed "weary, _which I seldom am_"; and already
over thirty, he would sit up all night cheerfully to see a comet. But it
is never pleasure that exhausts the pleasure-seeker; for in that career,
as in all others, it is failure that kills. The man who enjoys so
wholly, and bears so impatiently the slightest widowhood from joy, is
just the man to lose a night's rest over some paltry question of his
right to fiddle on the leads, or to be "vexed to the blood" by a
solecism in his wife's attire; and we find in consequence that he was
always peevish when he was hungry, and that his head "aked mightily"
after a dispute. But nothing could divert him from his aim in life; his
remedy in care was the same as his delight in prosperity: it was with
pleasure, and with pleasure only, that he sought to drive out sorrow;
and, whether he was jealous of his wife or skulking from a bailiff, he
would equally take refuge in a theatre. There, if the house be full and
the company noble, if the songs be tunable, the actors perfect, and the
play diverting, this odd hero of the secret Diary, this private
self-adorer, will speedily be healed of his distresses.

Equally pleased with a watch, a coach, a piece of meat, a tune upon the
fiddle, or a fact in hydrostatics, Pepys was pleased yet more by the