it In the present case the days are going by.  No sign of acknowledgment has been given.  Sceptics assure the believer that his faith rests on letters which were forged, on actions which others equally have performed; he can only yearn for some word or token which would enable him to shut their mouth.  But when some one hints that the friend is only concealing himself to test his power of vision, and will punish him if he does not see; and another objects that this would prove the friend a monster; he crushes the objector with a word:  “and what if the friend be GOD?”

The next group is fuller and still more characteristic:  for it displays the love of Art in its special conditions, and, at the same time, in its union with all the general human instincts in which artistic emotion can be merged.  We find it in its relation to the general love of life in

     “Fra Lippo Lippi.” ("Men and Women.” 1855.)

In its relation to the spiritual sense of existence in

     “Abt Vogler.” ("Dramatis Personae.” 1864.)

As a transformation of human tenderness in

     “Pictor Ignotus.” ("Men and Women.”  Published in “Dramatic
     Romances and Lyrics.” 1845.)

In its directly sensuous effects in

     “The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church.” ("Men
     and Women.”  Published as “The Tomb at Saint Praxed’s” in
     “Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.” 1845.)[72]

In its associative power in

     “A Toccata of Galuppi’s.” ("Dramatic Lyrics.”  Published in
     “Men and Women.” 1855.)

In its representative power in

     “The Guardian-Angel:  a Picture at Fano.” ("Dramatic Lyrics.” 
     Published in “Men and Women.” 1855.)

     “Eurydice to Orpheus:  a Picture by Leighton.” ("Dramatis
     Personae.” 1864.)

     “A Face.” ("Dramatis Personae.” 1864.)

“FRA LIPPO LIPPI” is a lively monologue, supposed to be uttered by that friar himself, on the occasion of a night frolic in which he has been surprised.  Cosmo dei Medici had locked him up in one room of the palace till some pictures he was painting for him should be finished;[73] and on this particular night he has found the confinement intolerable.  He has whipped his bed clothes into a rope, scrambled down from his window, and run after a girlish face which laughingly invited him from the street; and was about to return from the equivocal neighbourhood into which the fun had led him, when his monkish dress caught the attention of the guard, and he was captured and called to account.  He proceeds to give a sketch of his life and opinions, which supplies a fair excuse for the escapade.  The facts he relates are, including this one, historical.