Cocktail Talk: Eye For An Eye
Well, I may have had more Cocktail Talk posts from Anthony Trollope than any other author. I haven’t, like, counted, or anything, so it’s a guess – but a good one. If you’d like to learn about my Trollopean leanings, then you should go browse those posts. Or, read this one first, then browse them. One way or another, browse them! Hah. An Eye For An Eye isn’t consider in the core top Trollopes, but it’s a good read, and one that moves rapidly. There’s lots of Irish coastline, and lots of characters driven in ways that feel appropriate even today, even if the actual kickoff motivations aren’t. There’s also love, revenge, betrayal, and the below quote about drinking with a priest.
The dinner at the priest’s was very jovial. There was a bottle of sherry and there was a bottle of port, procured, chiefly for the sake of appearance, from a grocer’s shop at Ennistimon;–but the whiskey had come from Cork and had been in the priest’s keeping for the last dozen years. He good-humoredly acknowledged that the wine was nothing, but expressed an opinion that Mr. Neville might find it difficult to beat the “sperrits.” “It’s thrue for you, Father Marty,” said the rival priest from Milltown Malbay, “and it’s you that should know good sperrits from bad if ony man in Ireland does.”
–Anthony Trollope, An Eye For An Eye
