In Proteus Stephen imagines his uncle Richie
Goulding saying "Damn your lithia water," and in Sirens
Miss Kennedy puts a teatray on an "upturned lithia crate."
Lithia water was a kind of bottled mineral water popular at
the turn of the 20th century.
Much of this water came (and still comes) from Lithia
Springs, Georgia in the U.S. The lithium salts in the water
were supposed to cure various ailments, and doctors prescribed
it for their patients. In 1888 a resort spa opened in Lithia
Springs, and the water also began to be bottled and sold.
When Richie Goulding says (in Stephen's imagination), "Damn
your lithia water. It lowers," it is not clear
whether he is referring to some preference of Stephen's or
whether he is using "your" in a generic sense. Nor is the
sense of "lowers" made very clear. Does lithia water lower
one's metabolism? one's spirits? the strength or flavor of
one's "malt"? The OED notes that "lower" can
mean "to dilute." It offers several examples, including one
from Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit: "What do you go a
lowerin' the table-beer for then?"
It seems most likely that Richie is rejecting the theory that
"Whusky" should be diluted with a drop of
water, and especially mineral water. In "A Little Cloud,"
Ignatius Gallaher greets his old chum with a discussion of the
issue: "Hallo, Tommy, old hero, here you are! What is it to
be? What will you have? I'm taking whisky: better stuff than
we get across the water. Soda? Lithia? No mineral? I'm the
same. Spoils the flavour. . . . Here, garçon, bring
us two halves of malt whisky, like a good
fellow."
