"Faithful...In My Fashion[ing]": Shades of Association in Ernest Dowson's Poetry

Abstract

He seemed a lost creature, a youthful ghost strayed amongst the haunts of men, an object of pity. Pale, emaciated, in clothes that were almost ragged, poor Ernest flittered from bar to bar in search of someone with whom to talk. When he found a friend, his face would light up with a singular and penetrating sweetness that made one forget his untidiness— to use no other word— which verged on offence. He was never penniless, was always the first to pay for others, and when the drink was served he would sometimes take a little gold cross from his waistcoat pocket and dip it in the glass before he drank. Someone who did not know the circumstances said, “Ernest, were you ever in love?” The poet answered in the words of Voltaire. “Vous me demandez si j’ai aimé: oui! C’est une histoire singulière et terrible.”1