He praises this dream at the same time as "the best that ever was dreamt."
Mr. Pepys's idea of Paradise, it would be seen, was that commonly
attributed to the Mohammedans. Meanwhile he did his best to turn London
into an anticipatory harem. We get a pleasant picture of a little
Roundhead Sultan in such a sentence as "At night had Mercer comb my head
and so to supper, sing a psalm and to bed."

* * * * *

It may seem unfair to over-emphasize the voluptuary in Mr. Pepys, but it
is Mr. Pepys, the promiscuous amourist; stringing his lute (God forgive
him!) on a Sunday, that is the outstanding figure in the Diary. Mr. Pepys
attracts us, however, in a host of other aspects--Mr. Pepys whose nose his
jealous wife attacked with the red-hot tongs as he lay in bed; Mr. Pepys
who always held an anniversary feast on the date on which he had been cut
for the stone; Mr. Pepys who was not "troubled at it at all" as soon as he
saw that the lady who had spat on him in the theatre was a pretty one; Mr.
Pepys drinking; Mr. Pepys among his dishes; Mr. Pepys among princes; Mr.
Pepys who was "mightily pleased" as he listened to "my aunt Jenny, a poor,
religious, well-meaning good soul, talking of nothing but God Almighty";
Mr. Pepys, as he counts up his blessings in wealth, women, honour and
life, and decides that "all these things are ordered by God Almighty to
make me contented"; Mr. Pepys as, having just refused to see Lady
Pickering, he comments, "But how natural it is for us to slight people out
of power!"; Mr. Pepys who groans as he sees his office clerks sitting in
more expensive seats than himself at the theatre. Mr. Pepys is a man so
many-sided, indeed, that in order to illustrate his character one would
have to quote the greater part of his Diary. He is a mass of contrasts and
contradictions. He lives without sequence except in the business of