For a single desire is
more rightly to be called a lust; but there is health in a
variety, where one may balance and control another.
The whole world, town or country, was to Pepys a garden of
Armida. Wherever he went, his steps were winged with the
most eager expectation; whatever he did, it was done with the
most lively pleasure. An insatiable curiosity in all the
shows of the world and all the secrets of knowledge, filled
him brimful of the longing to travel, and supported him in
the toils of study. Rome was the dream of his life; he was
never happier than when he read or talked of the Eternal
City. When he was in Holland, he was "with child" to see any
strange thing. Meeting some friends and singing with them in
a palace near the Hague, his pen fails him to express his
passion of delight, "the more so because in a heaven of
pleasure and in a strange country." He must go to see all
famous executions. He must needs visit the body of a
murdered man, defaced "with a broad wound," he says, "that
makes my hand now shake to write of it." He learned to
dance, and was "like to make a dancer." He learned to sing,
and walked about Gray's Inn Fields "humming to myself (which
is now my constant practice) the trillo." He learned to play
the lute, the flute, the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it
was not the fault of his intention if he did not learn the
harpsichord or the spinet.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311