On one such excursion out across Hampstead Heath they lost their copy of “Shelley” in the leaves, and a wit has told us that it sprouted, and as a result—­the flower and fruit—­we have Browning’s poem of “Pauline.”  And this must be so, for Robert and Miss Flower (he always called her “Miss Flower,” but she called him “Robert”) made many an excursion, in search of the book, yet they never found it.

Robert now being eighteen, a man grown—­not large, but very strong and wiry—­his father made arrangements for him to take a minor clerkship in the Bank.  But the boy rebelled—­he was going to be an artist, or a poet, or something like that.

The father argued that a man could be a poet and still work in a bank—­the salary was handy; and there was no money in poetry.  In fact, he himself was a poet, as his father had been before him.  To be a bank-clerk and at the same time a poet—­what nobler ambition!

The young man was still stubborn.  He was feeling discontented with his environment:  he was cramped, cabined, cribbed, confined.  He wanted to get out of the world of petty plodding and away from the silly round of conventions, out into the world of art—­or else of barbarism—­he didn’t care which.

The latter way opened first, and a bit of wordy warfare with his father on the subject of idleness sent him off to a gipsy camp at Epsom Downs.  How long he lived with the vagabonds we do not know, but his swarthy skin, and his skill as a boxer and wrestler, recommended him to the ragged gentry, and they received him as a brother.

It is probable that a week of pure vagabondia cured him of the idea that civilization is a disease, for he came back home, made a bonfire of his attire, and after a vigorous tubbing, was clothed in his right mind.

Groggy studies in French under a private tutor followed, and then came a term as special student in Greek at London University.

To be nearer the school, he took lodgings in Gower Street; but within a week a slight rough-house incident occurred that crippled most of the furniture in his room and deprived the stair-rail of its spindles.  R. Browning, the Second, bank-clerk, paid the damages, and R. Browning, the Third, aged twenty, came back home, formally notifying all parties concerned that he had chosen a career—­it was Poetry.  He would woo the Divine Goddess, no matter who opposed.  There, now!

His mother was delighted; his father gave reluctant consent, declaring that any course in life was better than vacillation; and Miss Flower, who probably had sown the dragon’s teeth, assumed a look of surprise, but gave it as her opinion that Robert Browning would yet be Poet Laureate of England.

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