with my wife.

Writing of Mrs. Knipp on another occasion, he says:

She and I singing, and God forgive me! I do still see that my nature
is not to be quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all
things, though yet in the middle of it, it has reluctances after my
business, which is neglected by my following my pleasure. However,
musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.

Within a few weeks of this we find him writing again:

So abroad to my ruler's of my books, having, God forgive me! a mind
to see Nan there, which I did, and so back again, and then out
again to see Mrs. Bettons, who were looking out of the window as I
came through Fenchurch Streete. So that, indeed, I am not, as I
ought to be, able to command myself in the pleasures of my eye.

Though page after page of the Diary reveals Mr. Pepys as an extravagant
pleasure-lover, however, he differed from the majority of pleasure-lovers
in literature in not being a man of taste. He had a rolling rather than a
fastidious eye. He kissed promiscuously, and was not aspiring in his
lusts. He once held Lady Castlemaine in his arms, indeed, but it was in a
dream. He reflected, he tells us,

that since it was a dream, and that I took so much real pleasure in
it, what a happy thing it would be if when we are in our graves (as
Shakespeare resembles it) we could dream, and dream but such dreams
as this, that then we should not need to be so fearful of death, as
we are this plague time.