  At the end of 1937 Prior set aside thoughts of an academic career  and travelled to Europe with Clare, spending three bohemian years  there. They planned to earn a living from freelance writing; Arthur  wanted to gain ‘a footing in the English literary world’ (as he wrote to the New Zealand poet Ursula Bethell), and said he had ‘hopes of ending up eventually as the editor of a religious periodical’. This interlude in Europe, and its aftermath in New Zealand, was a critical period in Prior’s development—the crucible in which the mature thinker was formed. His social and political philosophy settled firmly to the far left, but ultimately fell short of Marxism; his pacifism escalated, only to be overturned by world events; and his theism began to wane into unbelief.