The Waltz in "Faust."
By Richard Dowling.
Y original name was John
Fowler. I am known to the world by one much more high sounding. This is the first time since I came to man's estate that I have written the name of my boyhood, and I
have never spoken it. The one I have gone by most of my life is hardly more
removed in splendour from plain John Fowler than the life of variety and rich experiences I now enjoy compared with the experience of my early years. I follow one of the fine arts as a profession, and in the impetuous days of my youth I adopted a nom de guerre of fine sound and picturesque associations.
I have refused all requests that I would furnish an account of my youth. I would not speak of it now if I did not feel absolutely certain that the man well known in certain art circles in London can never be identified through the autobiographical sketch with John Fowler, the miller's youngest son.
Private reasons, of no interest to the public, prevent me localising my early home. I am neither a criminal nor a hero, that people should be interested in my private life, and my only romantic experience will be found in this narrative. Telling my story over here will beguile my heart of a troublesome unrest which came to be positive pain, pain springing from a flood of memories, when a few moments ago a piano-organ at the next house played the waltz in "Faust."
The mill at Bracken Glen.
I was born in the dwelling-house attached to a water-mill in a secluded glen far away in the north of England. My family held religious views shared by no sect I ever heard of, and lived lives of extraordinary austerity. No mirror, no musical instruments, no volumes of poetry, no novels, no games of any kind were permitted in our house. The furniture was the most simple, consistent with maintaining bodily efficiency for the performance of the day's work without hindrance or loss of time; our carpets were of the dullest colour, and were considered merely as a means of keeping out the cold and economising fuel. We had curtains on the windows, but they were only to exclude or divert the draughts. Our clothes were ample and warm, but they were of the hues of the earth in winter. We spoke few words and in low tones. We ate and drank in silence. We had no place of worship. The whole Sunday was spent in solemn walks and reading the Scriptures and a few pious books. We regarded Quakers as lax Christians.
The household consisted of my father, his wife and children, and my father's brother, his wife and children. We were so large a family that all the mill work was done without the aid of strangers, and we all lived under one roof, in the mill house of Bracken Glen. I was the youngest, the youngest of all.
