The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Pepys feels a continual tension between his duties as a public servant and the attractions that such a job provides in his personal life—e.g., playgoing, eating and drinking, and spending money on luxury items. Repeatedly Pepys devises a “vow” to abstain from playgoing or drinking and recites the vow to himself on Sundays. When Pepys contravenes the vow by going to a play, he often expresses remorse for this and renews his intention to deny himself that pleasure and apply himself more diligently to his work.

The main reason Pepys desires to reduce his pleasure-seeking is that he feels it distracts him from his job and inhibits his clarity of mind. For example, early on in the Diary he states that strong drink “makes me sweat and puts me quite out of order” (15). However, Pepys’s wariness of pleasure might also reflect the Puritan tradition that was strong in England at this time, especially during the period of the Commonwealth. The Puritan ethic emphasized the importance of hard work and industry and denigrated certain pleasures (such as drinking, dancing, and playgoing) as temptations to be shunned. Pepys himself has an ambivalent attitude toward dancing, as he reveals on March 6 of the First Year when he goes to a party at which there is “dancing, singing, and drinking, of which I was ashamed; and after I had staid a dance or two I went away” (13).

The other reason Pepys is anxious about the role of pleasure and luxury in his life is that they cost money, and he is constantly aware of the need to save money for a better future for him and Elizabeth. Ironically, however, Pepys’s vision of their future life contains a certain amount of luxury, such as keeping their own coach. Elizabeth seems to share these desires and aspirations toward a more affluent life reflecting the force of Social Mobility. Yet in the meantime, Pepys tries to influence Elizabeth to be more frugal and is worried by her purchases of jewelry and clothes.

Pepys finds that he must struggle to apply himself at work. When he does, he finds satisfying results. We see this on August 16 of the Sixth Year, when Pepys learns firsthand “the evil of being behindhand in business” (320). Although he dreads doing his paperwork that afternoon and wants to find an excuse to “go abroad,” different tasks come his way and keep him occupied. As he works, he is “pleased” and “delighted” to see “my papers disposed of and letters answered […] that I could have continued there with delight all night long” (322). When he finally gets up and goes home in the evening, he is “exceeding merry” (322) and enjoys the evening meal, illustrating the idea that applying oneself in one’s work leads to happiness.