Tag, rag, and bobtail,
dancing, singing, and drinking, become his natural element;
actors and actresses and drunken, roaring courtiers are to be
found in his society; until the man grew so involved with
Saturnalian manners and companions that he was shot almost
unconsciously into the grand domestic crash of 1668.
That was the legitimate issue and punishment of years of
staggering walk and conversation. The man who has smoked his
pipe for half a century in a powder magazine finds himself at
last the author and the victim of a hideous disaster. So
with our pleasant-minded Pepys and his peccadilloes. All of
a sudden, as he still trips dexterously enough among the
dangers of a double-faced career, thinking no great evil,
humming to himself the trillo, Fate takes the further conduct
of that matter from his hands, and brings him face to face
with the consequences of his acts. For a man still, after so
many years, the lover, although not the constant lover, of
his wife, - for a man, besides, who was so greatly careful of
appearances, - the revelation of his infidelities was a
crushing blow. The tears that he shed, the indignities that
he endured, are not to be measured. A vulgar woman, and now
justly incensed, Mrs. Pepys spared him no detail of
suffering. She was violent, threatening him with the tongs;
she was careless of his honour, driving him to insult the
mistress whom she had driven him to betray and to discard;
worst of all, she was hopelessly inconsequent, in word and
thought and deed, now lulling him with reconciliations, and
anon flaming forth again with the original anger.
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