This intelligence greatly increased the dejection of Constantia, and
almost clouded the sanguine mind of Isabel. "Has mutability," she would
often say, "entirely usurped the earth? No. Inanimate nature is not
changed; the sun-beams steal through these grated windows at the same
hour this year as they did last. Summer and winter, day and night,
return at stated periods; the animal organs present the same objects,
and excite the usual sensations; nor are my moral feelings altered;
truth and honour continue to delight me; vice and falsehood are as
odious to my soul as if good men still triumphed, and guilt held its
alliance with infamy. Yet are not subjects transformed into traitors and
rebels; lovers forsworn; do not Christians renounce their baptism and
abjure their faith; and is not friendship become a cloak to conceal the
informer and assassin? Whom shall we acquit of inconstancy, if either
Eustace or De Vallance are false? How shall we depicture fidelity and
honour if they dwell not in the open front of heroic candour, or the
mild suavity of undeviating rectitude? Away!--the report of Williams is
a gossip's tale, forged to explain a mystery of their own forming.
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