n
us all which is perhaps more observable in strongly-marked characters
like De Lamennais, where, so to say, the bifurcating lines are produced
further. Proud men have occasional moods of genuine humility; and
habitual bitterness is allayed by intervals of sweetness; and
conversely, there are ugly streaks in the fairest marble.

And as to the fate of that restless soul, who shall dare to speak
dogmatically? We cling gladly to the story of the tear that stole down
his face in death, and would fain see in it some confirmation of the
view according to which the soul receives in that crucial hour a final
choice based on the collective experience of its mortal life. We would
hope that as there is a baptism of blood or of charity, so there may
perhaps be some uncovenanted absolution for one who so earnestly loved
mankind at large, and especially the poor and the oppressed; who in his
old age and misery was found by their sick-bed; who willed to be with
them in his death and burial. And yet we feel something of that
agonizing uncertainty which forced from the aged Abbe Jean the bitter
cry, "Feli, Feli, my brother!"

_Jan._ 1897.

XVII.

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.

"What pains me most," writes the late Sir Joseph Crowe in the
_Nineteenth Century_ for October, 1896, "is to think that the art of Fra
Filippo, the loose fish, and seducer of holy women, looks almost as
pure, and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of
Fiesole." And indeed, if the fact be admitted, it cannot but be a shock
to all those high-minded thinkers who have committed themselves
unreservedly to the view that personal sanctity and elevation of
character in the artist is an essential condition for the production of
any great work of art, and especially of religious art. As regards the
fact, we need not concern ourselves very long. If Rio and others,
presumably biassed by the same theory, are inclined to see Lippi's moral
depravity betrayed in every stroke of his brush, yet the more general
and truer verdict accords him a place among the great masters of his
age, albeit beneath Angelico and some others. Beyond all doubt it must
be allowed that even in point of spirituality and heavenliness of
expression, he stands high above numbers of artists of pure life and
blameless reputation; and this fact leaves us face to face with the
problem already suggested as to the precise connection between high
morality and high art--if any.