men who are happily married to women in all chief respects
fitted to them, are apt to find, after some years of married
life, a mysterious craving for variety. They are not tired of
their wives, they have not the least wish or intention to abandon
them, they will not, if they can help it, give them the slightest
pain. But from time to time they are led by an almost
irresistible and involuntary impulse to seek a temporary intimacy
with women to whom nothing would persuade them to join themselves
permanently. Pepys, whose _Diary_, in addition to its other
claims upon us, is a psychological document of unique importance,
furnishes a very characteristic example of this kind of impulse.
He had married a young and charming wife, to whom he is greatly
attached, and he lives happily with her, save for a few
occasional domestic quarrels soon healed by kisses; his love is
witnessed by his jealousy, a jealousy which, as he admits, is
quite unreasonable, for she is a faithful and devoted wife. Yet a
few years after marriage, and in the midst of a life of strenuous
official activity, Pepys cannot resist the temptation to seek the
temporary favors of other women, seldom prostitutes, but nearly
always women of low social class--shop women, workmen's wives,
superior servant-girls. Often he is content to invite them to a
quiet ale-house, and to take a few trivial liberties. Sometimes
they absolutely refuse to allow more than this; when that happens
he frequently thanks Almighty God (as he makes his entry in his
_Diary_ at night) that he has been saved from temptation and from
loss of time and money; in any case, he is apt to vow that it
shall never occur again. It always does occur again. Pepys is
quite sincere with himself; he makes no attempt at justification
or excuse; he knows that he has yielded to a temptation; it is an
impulse that comes over him at intervals, an impulse that he
seems unable long to resist. Throughout it all he remains an
estimable and diligent official, and in most respects a tolerably
virtuous man, with a genuine dislike of loose people and loose
talk. The attitude of Pepys is brought out with incomparable
simplicity and sincerity because he is setting down these things
for his own eyes only, but his case is substantially that of a
vast number of other men, perhaps indee