For our last dally (for now, at least) into Anthony Trollope’s novel The Prime Minister, we’re ending with two of the (in my opinion, ‘natch) great characters in Trollope’s oeuvre, and perhaps in English fiction itself, Plantagenet Palliser and Glencora Palliser, his wife (Lord and Lady and then Duke and Duchess if you’re feeling formal). Their marriage and early days kick off the whole Palliser series of novels, and they surface here and there throughout the series, sometimes as bit parts, sometimes more supporting, sometimes starring. Which means it’s only fitting we end with a little brandy banter between them (don’t, of course, miss the earlier The Prime Minister Cocktail Talks, part I, part II, and part III, to learn more about the book, and for that matter, why not spend some with all the Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talks – you’ll have fun. Promise)!
“If you ask me, Plantagenet, you know I shall tell the truth.”
“Then tell the truth.”
“After drinking brandy so long I hardly think that 12s. claret will agree with my stomach. You ask for the truth, and there it is,—very plainly.”
“Plain enough!”
“You asked, you know.”
“And I am glad to have been told, even though that which you tell me is not pleasant hearing. When a man has been drinking too much brandy, it may be well that he should be put on a course of 12s. claret.”
For our third jaunt into the politics, romance, customs, and (most importantly) drinking in the upper-middle-and-upper-classes as shown in the Anthony Trollope book The Prime Minister, we go on a little vacation. This takes us back into contact with Sexty (!) Parker (for more on Sexty, see The Prime Minister Cocktail Talk Part II), and with his wife, and with Emily Wharton, here using her married name, Mrs. Lopez (for more on Emily and for a brief overview of the whole book, be sure to see The Prime Minister Cocktail Talk Part I, and don’t miss the past Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talks). The below quote is a bit long, forgive me! But I didn’t want to miss the so-called bubbly or the not-called (but still seems to be) whiskey toddy. You deserve both – and deserve to read the book, so do if you haven’t.
It was all his ordering, and if he bade her dine with a crossing-sweeper she would do it. But she could not but remember that not long since he had told her that his partner was not a person with whom she could fitly associate; and she did not fail to perceive that he must be going down in the world to admit such association for her after he had so spoken. And as she sipped the mixture which Sexty called champagne, she thought of Herefordshire and the banks of the Wye, and,— alas, alas, — she thought of Arthur Fletcher. Nevertheless, come what might, she would do her duty, even though it might call upon her to sit at dinner with Mr. Parker three days in the week. Lopez was her husband, and would be the father of her child, and she would make herself one with him. It mattered not what people might call him, — or even her. She had acted on her own judgment in marrying him, and had been a fool; and now she would bear the punishment without complaint.
When dinner was over Mrs. Parker helped the servant to remove the dinner things from the single sitting-room, and the two men went out to smoke their cigars in the covered porch. Mrs. Parker herself took out the whisky and hot water, and sugar and lemons, and then returned to have a little matronly discourse with her guest. “Does Mr. Lopez ever take a drop too much?” she asked.
“Never,” said Mrs. Lopez.
“Perhaps it don’t affect him as it do Sexty. He ain’t a drinker; — certainly not. And he’s one that works hard every day of his life. But he’s getting fond of it these last twelve months, and though he don’t take very much it hurries him and flurries him.
For our Prime Minister Cocktail Talk the second, one of the best-named characters in the book pops up: Sextus Parker, nicknamed Sexty. Not at all what you might expect from the modern usage, or near-usage, of the word or words contained within. He’s a chap who works with Ferdinand Lopez – be sure to read The Prime Minister Cocktail Talk Part I to learn more about the book, the main characters, and my take on it in short form (cause who has time for long form?), and such. Anyway, back to Sexty. In the below you see he likes both sherry and brandy (who doesn’t?), and that the consumption of such effects his confidence, much like it does for modern folks.
Sextus Parker still thought that things would come round. Ferdinand, – he always now called his friend by his Christian name, – Ferdinand was beautifully, seraphically confident. And Sexty, who had been in a manner magnetized by Ferdinand, was confident too, – at certain periods of the day. He was very confident when he had had his two or three glasses of sherry at luncheon, and he was often delightfully confident with his cigar and brandy-and-water at night. But there were periods in the morning in which he would shake with fear and sweat with dismay.
Another Anthony Trollope novel I can’t believe hasn’t been featured here with a Cocktail Talk quote already (considering how many Trollope Cocktail Talks there are), The Prime Minister is one of the Palliser series of novels, which revolve in the main around the 1800s political scene. Fictional, I suppose I should say, though many non-fictional personages are mentioned, too. And with characters coming in and out of the novels, if you read a few in a row, or even over a series of years, they become as lifelike to you as any historical figure, perhaps (and perhaps that was part of Trollope’s genius). This book, like many of his, has multiple plot lines running, and he weaves them together fairly well, but not, for me, as well as my favorites of the Palliser books, Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux – though our friend Phineas does show in The Prime Minister, which made me happy! Not that this isn’t a grand read (and some like it as much or more than any Trollope – Tolstoy, for one, and he knows thing), but, and I can admit it could be that I re-read it recently directly after re-reading Phineas Redux, I personally don’t love it as much as other Trollope’s. I love it, much of it, don’t get me wrong. Just not as much! It centers around our old friend Plantagenet Palliser (who, along with his awesome wife Glencora, star in the book that kicks off the series, and then show throughout), who becomes Prime Minister, for better or worse. And then also centers for much of the book around a man named Ferdinand Lopez (a foreigner by birth, or so thought, and whose characteristics and ethnicity are often discussed in a manner that while mirroring I’d guess the manner of the time, doesn’t sit well often in our time – Trollope was a very accurate mirror, for better or worse I suppose), who might not be as savory as a gentleman should be, though I don’t want to give away too much, and his wife-to-be and then wife, Emily Wharton. The plots intermingle and outer mingle, and I found myself wishing for more of the former, but that may vary on the reader. What won’t vary is a wish for the time when everyone had sherry for breakfast, as in the below quote.
At about nine the Duke had returned, and was eating his very simple dinner in the breakfast-room – a beefsteak and a potato, with a glass of sherry and Apollinaris water. No man more easily satisfied as to what he and and drank lived in London in those days. As regarded the eating and drinking he dined alone, but his wife sat with him and waited on him, having sent the servant out of the room. “I have told her Majesty that I would do the best I could,” said the Duke.
“Then you are Prime Minister.”
“Not at all. Mr. Daubeny is Prime Minister. I have undertaken to form a ministry, if I find it practicable, with the assistance of such friends as I possess. I never felt before that I had to lean so entirely on others as I do now.”
We have one more stop in Ireland, via Anthony Trollope’s novel (one of five he wrote set there) of upper-ish class romance, mystery, and such during the beginnings of the Irish famine. If you’ve missed the Castle Richmond Part I and Part II Cocktail Talks, then please, take a trip to them now (and for that matter, why not try out all the Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talks). Once back, take a step through the below quote into the Kanturk Hotel (and bar, moreso), where you’ll meet the charming Fanny O’Dwyer, and learn some charming phrases for drinks.
Behind the coffee-room was the bar, from which Fanny O’Dwyer dispensed dandies of punch and goes of brandy to her father’s customers from Kanturk. For at this, as at other similar public-houses in Irish towns, the greater part of the custom on which the publican depends came to him from the inhabitants of one particular country district. A large four-wheeled vehicle, called a long car, which was drawn by three horses, and travelled over a mountain road at the rate of four Irish miles an hour, came daily from Kanturk to Cork, and daily returned. This public conveyance stopped in Cork at the Kanturk Hotel, and was owned by the owner of that house, in partnership with a brother in the same trade located in Kanturk. It was Mr. O’Dwyer’s business to look after this concern, to see to the passengers and the booking, the oats, and hay, and stabling, while his well-known daughter, the charming Fanny O’Dwyer, took care of the house, and dispensed brandy and whisky to the customers from Kanturk.
To tell the truth, the bar was a much more alluring place than the coffee-room, and Fanny O’Dwyer a more alluring personage than Tom, the one-eyed waiter.
Our second delving into this lesser-read (probably? I feel overall Anthony Trollope should be read more, and this novel isn’t one of those read even partially enough atm) Irish-set Trollope tale takes us into a space Trollope wrote about better than anyone, the house of an English rector. While our man of the cloth here isn’t one of the book’s main characters, he has enough page time that you’ll come to enjoy his company (his wife’s too, though mostly for her sometimes ridiculousness). The fact that he likes a whisky punch in an evening, certainly makes liking him easier. Oh, don’t miss the Castle Richmond Cocktail Talk Part I, for more book background and brandy (and all the Trollope Cocktail Talks for even more).
But the parlour was warm enough; warm and cosy, though perhaps at times a little close; and of evenings there would pervade it a smell of whisky punch, not altogether acceptable to unaccustomed nostrils. Not that the rector of Drumbarrow was by any means an intemperate man. His single tumbler of whisky toddy, repeated only on Sundays and some other rare occasions, would by no means equal, in point of drinking, the ordinary port of an ordinary English clergyman. But whisky punch does leave behind a savour of its intrinsic virtues, delightful no doubt to those who have imbibed its grosser elements, but not equally acceptable to others who may have been less fortunate.
Those who have visited Spiked Punch before (and really, who hasn’t?) know that I have a love of Anthony Trollope books, as there are a number of Trollope Cocktail Talks underlining that love. Please, go read them all! But I haven’t yet had one I don’t believe from Castle Richmond, one of five of his novels set in Ireland, a place where he lived for a good chunk of time, working for the post and kicking off his writing career. It’s perhaps my favorite of the five? Perhaps. Taking place at the beginning of the Irish famine, it has some harrowing moments and insights into that tragedy, though the core story itself is of a more personal family tragedy, or mystery, or both. Tragestery? There are the normal Trollopean well-developed characters a’plenty, mostly of the upperish class or want to be kind, but with enough others sprinkled in to keep it interesting. As well as the main did-she-or-they-or-didn’t-they kind of plot in a way, with enough side plots and history sprinkled in to keep it fresh. And of course, or we wouldn’t be here, a nice Cocktail Talky quote or two. At least two. Maybe three? Come back and see! Our first starts at a bar-rooming-house spot, where two of the more disreputable, shall we say, characters are living at for a chunk of the book. Living and drinking at, that is.
“You are cold I suppose, governor, and had better get a bit of something to eat, and a little tea.”
“And put my feet in hot water, and tallow my nose, and go to bed, hadn’t I? Miss O’Dwyer, I’ll trouble you to mix me a glass of brandy-punch. Of all the roads I ever travelled, that’s the longest and hardest to get over. Dashed, if I didn’t begin to think I’d never be here.” And so saying he flung himself into a chair, and put up his feet on the two hobs.
There was a kettle on one of them, which the young lady pushed a little nearer to the hot coals, in order to show that the water should be boiling; and as she did so Aby gave her a wink over his father’s shoulder, by way of conveying to her an intimation that “the governor was a little cut,” or in other language tipsy, and that the brandy-punch should be brewed with a discreet view to past events of the same description. All which Miss O’Dwyer perfectly understood.
This, friends, is a solemn time here on the Spiked Punch. I’ve just now this moment realized that I’ve never had a Cocktail Talk (unless I’ve lost it over the years, which is possible as my mind is old and there are many posts on there) from the immortal Anthony Trollope novel Phineas Finn. Or, from the also immortal Phineas Redux. What in the world? Y’all know I love me some Anthony Trollope (you know this from reading the many Trollope Cocktail Talks), and of all the Trollopian fictional gems, the two Phineas books – which are the second and fourth I believe in the Palliser series of novels by Trollope, books which revolve around politics, and how those taking part in them acted and talked and such, of his time in the main, while still being fiction – may well be my favorite. Not saying they are the best or making any canonical pronouncements. But they may be my favorites. I’m not even sure I can type out why! But I have a soft spot perhaps for the hero (Phineas), an Irish-born fella who makes his way into the London political world and has adventures and mis-adventures and romances and at least one duel and fox hunts and trials and ups and downs and brandy and all kinds of things. Perhaps I just love the scope and insights into the time period? Or how the characters mingle through the books, some coming and some going until there’s this whole feeling of being a part of the world Trollope is creating, or how the motivations seem to mirror modern ones (with different trapping of course)? Or his “complete appreciation of the usual” as they say? All of that? The one thing I know for sure is that I can’t believe I haven’t had a quote in the form of a Cocktail Talk from either Phineas book! Well, let’s remedy that with the below, shall we? This particular one doesn’t actually feature said hero, but one of the other fairly important, let’s call them sub-main characters, Lord Chiltern.
He told nothing to Captain Clutterbuck of his sorrow, but Captain Clutterbuck could see that he was unhappy.
“Let’s have another bottle of ‘cham,’” said Captain Clutterbuck, when their dinner was nearly over. “‘Cham’ is the only thing to screw one up when one is down a peg.”
“You can have what you like,” said Lord Chiltern; “but I shall have some brandy-and-water.”
“The worst of brandy-and-water is, that one gets tired of it before the night is over,” said Captain Clutterbuck.