consecration of an early death was upon him. And so the worship rooted
itself and grew. It was to find its lyrical expression in 'Pauline'; its
rational and, from the writer's point of view, philosophic justification
in the prose essay on Shelley, published eighteen years afterwards.

It may appear inconsistent with the nature of this influence that
it began by appealing to him in a subversive form. The Shelley whom
Browning first loved was the Shelley of 'Queen Mab', the Shelley who
would have remodelled the whole system of religious belief, as of human
duty and rights; and the earliest result of the new development was
that he became a professing atheist, and, for two years, a practising
vegetarian. He returned to his natural diet when he found his eyesight
becoming weak. The atheism cured itself; we do not exactly know when or
how. What we do know is, that it was with him a passing state of moral
or imaginative rebellion, and not one of rational doubt. His mind was
not so constituted that such doubt could fasten itself upon it; nor
did he ever in after-life speak of this period of negation except as
an access of boyish folly, with which his maturer self could have no
concern. The return to religious belief did not shake his faith in his
new prophet. It only made him willing to admit that he had misread him.

This Shelley period of Robert Browning's life--that which intervened
between 'Incondita' and 'Pauline'--remained, nevertheless, one of
rebellion and unrest, to which many circumstances may have contributed
besides the influence of the one mind. It had been decided that he was
to complete, or at all events continue, his education at home; and,
knowing the elder Mr. Browning as we do, we cannot doubt that the best
reasons, of kindness or expediency, led to his so deciding. It was none
the less, probably, a mistake, for the time being. The conditions of
home life were the more favourable for the young poet's imaginative