To church; and with my mourning, very handsome, and new periwig, make a great show.

Samuel Pepys records this line in his Diary during the period when he was wearing mourning—part of the elaborate social etiquette surrounding death and public respectability in Restoration England. Pepys is acutely attentive to clothes, status, and how he appears in public, and churchgoing is one of the most visible weekly stages for display. The mention of a “new periwig” (a fashionable wig) reflects the growing importance of such accessories among men of his class in the 1660s, as well as Pepys’s own mixture of vanity, social ambition, and self-scrutiny. The sentence captures his habit of noting small, telling details of daily life alongside larger events.

The line juxtaposes outward solemnity (“mourning”) with conspicuous self-presentation (“very handsome…new periwig…make a great show”). Pepys inadvertently exposes the tension between piety and performance: church is not only a religious duty but also a social arena where one’s rank and taste are read through dress. The phrase “make a great show” suggests self-awareness bordering on irony—Pepys recognizes that even grief can be stylized and that public virtue can be intertwined with vanity. As a diary entry, it also exemplifies Pepys’s candid realism: he does not idealize himself, but records the mixed motives that animate ordinary actions.