But her intense personal devoutness undoubtedly quickened what was personal in his belief, drew it into an atmosphere of keener and more emotional consciousness, and in particular gave to that "revelation of God in Christ" which they both regarded as what was "most beautiful in the Christian doctrine," a more vital hold upon his intellectual and imaginative life.

In this sense, but only in this sense, his fervid words to her (February 1846)--"I mean to ...

let my mind get used to its new medium of sight, seeing all things as it does through you; and then let all I have done be the prelude and the real work begin"-- were not unfulfilled.

No deep hiatus, such as this phrase suggests, divides the later, as a whole, from the earlier work: the "dramatic" method, which was among the elements of his art most foreign to her lyric nature, established itself more and more firmly in his practice.

But the letters of 1845-46 show that her example was stimulating him to attempt a more direct and personal utterance in poetry, and while he did not succeed, or succeeded only "once and for one only," in evading his dramatic bias, he certainly succeeded in making the dramatic form more eloquently expressive of his personal faith.
This was peculiarly the case in the remarkable _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_ (1850), the first-fruits of his married life, and the most instinct of all his poems with the mingled literary and religious influences which it brought.