er was to lose happiness. Yet, with
this full conviction, she forsook the happiness and clung to the power.
Alas! for our best and wisest theories, our problems, our systems, our
philosophy! Human beings will never cease to mistake the means for the
end; and, despite the dogmas of sages, our conduct does not depend on
our convictions.

Carriage after carriage had rolled beneath the windows of the room
where Constance sat, and still she moved not; until at length a certain
composure, as if the result of some determination, stole over her
features. The brilliant and transparent hues returned to her cheek, and,
as she rose and stood erect with a certain calmness and energy on her
lip and forehead, perhaps her beauty had never seemed of so lofty and
august a cast. In passing through the chamber, she stopped for a moment
opposite the mirror that reflected her stately shape in its full height.
Beauty is so truly the weapon of woman, that it is as impossible for
her, even in grief, wholly to forget its effect, as it is for the flying
warrior to look with indifference on the sword with which he has won
his trophies or his fame. Nor was Constance that evening disposed to
be indifferent to the effect she should produce. She looked on the
reflection of herself with a feeling of triumph, not arising from vanity
alone.

And when did mirror ever give back a form more worthy of a Pericles
to worship, or an Apelles to paint? Though but little removed from the
common height, the impression Constance always gave was that of a person
much taller than she really was. A certain majesty in the turn of
the head, the fall of the shoulders, the breadth of the brow, and the
exceeding calmness of the features, invested her with an air which I
have never seen equalled by any one, but which, had Pasta been a beauty,
she might have possessed. But there was nothing hard or harsh in
this majesty. Whatsoever of a masculine nature Constance might have
inherited, nothing masculine, nothing not exquisitely feminine, was
visible in her person. Her shape was rounded, and sufficiently full to
show, that in middle age its beauty would be preserved by that richness
and freshness which a moderate increase of the proportions always gives
to the sex. Her arms and hands were, and are, even to this day, of a
beauty the more striking, because it is so rare. Nothing in any European
country is more uncommon than an arm really beautiful both in hue and
shape. In any