Phineas Finn and the course of true love

Phineas Finn: The Irish Member by Anthony Trollope

serialized 1867-88, published as a book 1868

       

Then Violet Effingham entered the room, rolled up in pretty white furs, and silk cloaks, and lace shawls

(picture from NYPL – it is from some years later but seemed to give the right impression)           

 

 

More about this excellent Trollope book, which I read on a trip to Ireland. (Previous post here)

There are quite a few youngish (in their 20s) people in the book with their futures to be considered, and decided, by Trollope.

Lord Chiltern is an absolutely excellent character: he is so recognizable – someone who behaves badly and needs reforming. He is obstinate and hard to help but has an underlying charm and integrity, and a sense of humour which feels very modern.

A not-particularly-pleasant man called Mr Kennedy is attacked in the street by thieves – key character Phineas Finn saves his life as he is about to be garotted. Talking it over with Lord Chiltern:

"The fellow was in the act of doing it."

"And you stopped him?"

"Yes;—I got there just in time. Wasn't it lucky?"

"You ought to be garrotted yourself. I should have lent the man a hand had I been there."

Chiltern is probably in love with Violet – and this is how he speaks about her chaperone:

"That old grandmother of evil has come to town,—has she? Poor Violet! When we were young together we used to have such fun about that old woman."

Are he and Violet destined to get together? She has also taken the fancy of Phineas Finn himself. He is worried about another rival, Lord Fawn. Violet tells them about an important charity:

The Female Protestant Unmarried Women's Emigration Society.

In a three-way conversation, she says:

"But it is a perilous affair for me, as my aunt wants me to go out as a sort of leading Protestant unmarried female emigrant pioneer myself."

"You don't mean that," said Lord Fawn, with much anxiety.

"Of course you'll go," said Phineas. "I should, if I were you."

"I am in doubt," said Violet.

"It is such a grand prospect," said he. "Such an opening in life. So much excitement, you know; and such a useful career."

Lord Fawn is puzzled, he doesn’t understand the joke, and ‘Then Phineas began to hope that he need not be afraid of Lord Fawn.’

But Lord Chiltern is another matter – he and Violet were childhood friends,

“Do you remember my taking you away right through Saulsby Wood once on the old pony, and not bringing you back till tea-time, and Miss Blink going and telling my father?"

"Do I remember it? I think it was the happiest day in my life. His pockets were crammed full of gingerbread and Everton toffy, and we had three bottles of lemonade slung on to the pony's saddlebows. I thought it was a pity that we should ever come back."

I think that is a remarkable description in a couple of lines of a childhood day out – the reader can wholly imagine it.

Lord Chiltern and Phineas Finn’s rivalry brings them to a most surprising event – and I am most certainly not going to tell you who ends up married to whom.

It is a great book, with a lot to say about male-female relations – although I would repeat my advice from the previous post: skim through the politics and hunting. Stick to relationships.

Standing man, standing in for Lord Chiltern, from NYPL.