e to make up his
mind to destroy these little manuscript volumes.

Why did he write them, one still asks? Readers of Robert Browning's
poems, _House_ and _Shop_, will remember the scorn which that poet pours
upon any one who unlocks his heart to the general public. And these
narrations of Pepys' are certainly of such a kind that if he intended
them to be read by any public in any generation of England, he must be
set down as unique among sane men. Stevenson indeed considers that there
was in the Diary a side glance at publication, but the proof which he
adduces from the text does not seem sufficient to sustain so remarkable
a freak of human nature, nor does the fact that on one occasion Pepys
set about destroying all his papers except the Diary, appear to prove
very much one way or another. Stevenson calls it inconsistent and
unreasonable in a man to write such a book and to preserve it unless he
wanted it to be read. But perhaps no writing of diaries is quite
reasonable; and as for his desire to have it read by others than
himself, we find that his Diary was so close a secret that he expresses
regret for having mentioned it to Sir William Coventry. No other man
ever heard of it in Pepys' lifetime, "it not being necessary, nor maybe
convenient, to have it known."

Why, then, did he write it? Why does anybody write a diary? Probably the
answer nearest to the truth will be that every one finds himself
interesting, and some people have so keen an interest in themselves that
it becomes a passion, clamorous to be gratified. Now as Bacon tells us,
"Writing maketh an exact man," and the writing of diaries reduces to the
keenest vividness our own impressions of experience and thoughts about
things. Pepys was, above all other men, interested in himself. He was
intensely in love with himself. The beautiful, jealous, troublesome, and
yet inevitable Mrs. Pepys was but second in her husband's affections
after all. He was his own wife. One remembers fashionable novels of the
time of _Evelina_ or the _Mysteries of Udolpho_, and recollects how the
ladies there speak lover-like of their diaries, and, when writing them,
feel themselves always in the best possible company. For Pepys, his
Diary does not seem to have been so much a refuge from daily cares and
worries, nor a preparation for the luxury of reading it in his old age,
as an indulgence of intense and poignant pleasure in the hour of
writing.

His interest in himself was quite