extraordinary. When his library was
collected and his books bound and gilded they were doubtless a treasured
possession of which he was hugely proud. But this was not so much a
possession as it was a kind of _alter ego_, a fragment of his living
self, hidden away from all eyes but his own. No trifle in his life is
too small for record. He cannot change his seat in the office from one
side of the fireplace to another without recording it. The gnats trouble
him at an inn in the country. His wig takes fire and crackles, and he is
mighty merry about it until he discovers that it is his own wig that is
burning and not somebody else's. He visits the ships, and, remembering
former days, notes down without a blush the sentence, "Poor ship, that I
have been twice merry in." Any one could have written the Diary, so far
as intellectual or even literary power is concerned, though perhaps few
would have chosen precisely Pepys' grammar in which to express
themselves. But nobody else that ever lived could have written it with
such sheer abandonment and frankness. He has a positive talent, nay, a
genius for self-revelation, for there must be a touch of genius in any
man who is able to be absolutely true. Other men have struggled hard to
gain sincerity, and when it is gained the struggle has made it too
conscious to be perfectly sincere. Pepys, with utter unconsciousness, is
sincere even in his insincerities. Some of us do not know ourselves and
our real motives well enough to attempt any formal statement of them.
Others of us may suspect ourselves, but would die before we would
confess our real motives even to ourselves, and would fiercely deny them
if any other person accused us of them. But this man's barriers are all
down. There is no reserve, but frankness everywhere and to an unlimited
extent. There is no pose in the book either of good or bad, and it is
one of the very few books of which such a statement could be made. He
has been accused of many things, but never of affectation. The bad
actions are qualified by regrets, and the disarmed critic feels that
they have lost any element of tragedy which they might otherwise have
had. The good actions are usually spoiled by some selfish _addendum_
which explains and at the same time debases them. Surely the man who
could do all this constantly through so many hundreds of pages, must be
in his way a unique kind of genius, to have so clear an eye and so
little self-deception.

The Diary