Miss Brandt

“ Miss Brandt has a thorny path before her. She is a young lady who will have her own way, and with the glorious example of the Baroness the way is not likely to be too carefully chosen. To tell the truth, old boy, I ran away because I was afraid of falling into the trap. The girl wishes intensely to be married, and she is not a girl whom men will marry, and so—we need go no further. Only, I should not be surprised if, notwithstanding her fortune and her beauty, we should find Miss Harriet Brandt figuring before long, amongst the free lances of London. ”

“ Miss Brandt is happily too sensible to have been taken in by your pretence of making love to her. She estimates you at your true value. She knows that you are engaged to Elinor Leyton—that you were engaged all the time she knew you—and, I think, she rather pities Miss Leyton for being engaged to you!”
But this point of view had never presented itself before to the inflated vanity of Ralph Pullen. ”

“ Harriet Brandt’s magnificent eyes were opened to their widest extent—her cheeks flushed with expectation—both life and light had flashed into her countenance. Her soul was expanding, her nature was awakening—it shone through every feature—the Baroness had had no idea she was so beautiful! And the hungry, yearning look was more accentuated than before—it seemed as if she were on the alert, watching for something, like a panther awaiting the advent of its prey. It was a look that women would have shrunk from, and men welcomed and eagerly responded to. ”

“ Miss Brandt may be all that you say—I am not in a position to contradict your assertions—but to me she represents only a friendless and unprotected woman, who has a right to our sympathy and respect.”
“A friendless woman!” sneered Captain Pullen, “yes! and a doosid good-looking one into the bargain, eh, my dear fellow, and much of your sympathy and respect she would command if she were ugly and humpbacked. O! I know you, Pennell! It’s no use your coming the benevolent Samaritan over me! You have an eye for a jimper waist and a trim ancle as well as most men. ”

“ She had thrown herself back in her armchair, and was regarding him as if he were perpetrating some mysterious joke, which she did not understand.
“How extraordinary; how very extraordinary!” she exclaimed at length, “that is the very thing that Ralph said of her when they first met.”
“But why extraordinary? There are few men who would not endorse the opinion. Miss Brandt possesses the kind of beauty that appeals to the senses of animal creatures like ourselves. She has a far more dangerous quality than that of mere regularity of feature. She [Pg 232] attracts without knowing it. ”

“ Given the opportunity some men could stand against it all, and Brandt assured himself that he would have been among these—but reflection brought discernment, and in the review of his serene life he concluded each time that his lot had fallen in the best place after all, and he was content. ”

“ Having, after much difficulty, broken off his liaison with Margarethe Land, he married the singer Carolina Brandt, a noble-minded woman and consummate artist, who was well able to repay him for the part he had long played in her mental development. ”

“ The tree was barren of leaves, and the combined light from the lanterns permeated its every crotch, yet no man nor beast was brought to view. Brandt looked reluctantly at first, then more carefully. Seeing nothing he looked across into the faces of those opposite him, and, observing only expressions of bewilderment, began to appreciate the ludicrousness of the situation, and smiled. Doles sidled around to where Carey stood, first looking into his face for a sign of discovery, then turning his own gaze upward for another long search. ”

“ If you prefer it, I will,” he answered in the same indifferent tone.
“Who is that young lady sitting opposite, with the dark eyes?” demanded Doctor Phillips of Mrs. Pullen.
“The same I spoke to you of, upstairs, as having been kind to baby—Miss Harriet Brandt!”
“I knew a Brandt once,” he answered. “Has she anything to do with the West Indies?”
“O! yes! she comes from Jamaica! She is an orphan, the daughter of Doctor Henry Brandt, and has been educated in the Ursuline Convent there! She is a young lady with an independent fortune, and considered to be quite a catch in Heyst!” ”

“ I was sorry on arriving in Vienna not to see once more the venerable old singer, Marianne Brandt, but she had died, aged eighty-four, during the previous winter. In 1884-85 she had been one of the main props of my father’s inaugural German opera season; and her emotional intensity in “Fidelio” and as the mother in “Le Prophète” had made a deep impression on our public. Nature had not endowed her with beauty of face or figure, and she always insisted: “I have been a virtuous woman all my life because I am so ugly that no man would ever look at me.” ”

“ Enevold Brandt was a few years older than Christian VII. He came of an ancient Danish family: his father had been a privy councillor and private secretary to Queen Sophia Magdalena, but he died before his son’s birth. His mother married again Baron Söhlenthal, and young Brandt was brought up in his stepfather’s house. At an early age he went to Copenhagen to study law, and passed his examinations with flying colours. In his vacations Brandt travelled widely: he was a polished man of the world and possessed brilliant social qualities. ”

“ THE ANONYMOUS LETTER—INCENDIARY PLACARDS—THE SAILORS AT HIRSCHHOLM—ALARM AT COURT—THE FEAST OF THE BŒUF ROTI—THE CONSPIRACY—FALCKENSKJOLD'S ADVICE—STRUENSEE'S ALARMS—BRANDT'S LEVITY—THE SECOND LETTER—BRANDT'S RESOLUTION.
When Brandt had got rid so cleverly of his oppressive duties in constantly attending on the king, it might have been supposed that he would have nothing to trouble his mind henceforth, but would take the goods the gods provided him in a happy frame of mind. ”

“ All hope is not gone yet. You know there is still lots and lots of happiness for everybody, so why not make the most of it?" And, though still suffocating from his words, that filled her with guilty shame and partial resentment, she led them back to smiles and laughter through the medium of the children.
The meal finished, and the women occupied with their feminine interests, Brandt slipped away to his room of books, and, throwing himself into his easy chair, gave his thoughts over to other days, influenced by the young parson's burning words. ”

“ He is then noble?" Frau Brandt inferred, raising her eyes, with satisfaction.
"As noble as need be. An English peer is marriageable. So here's adieu to my cottage in the air."
"Here's good riddance to it," said Frau Brandt.
That evening, at the hour of sunset, Maria Dolores met John in the garden.
"You had a visitor this afternoon," she announced. "A most inspiritingly young old lady, as soft and white as a powder-puff, in a carriage that was like a coach-and-four. Lady Blanchemain. She is leaving to-morrow for England. ”

“ He says he has been a pioneer, hunter, scout, soldier, trader—everything. When he came to the fort we needed men. It was just after Girty's siege, and all the cabins had been burned. Brandt seemed honest, and was a good fellow. Besides, he had gold. He started the river barges, which came from Fort Pitt. He has surely done the settlement good service, and has prospered. I never talked a dozen times to him, and even then, not for long. He appears to like the young people, which is only natural. That's all I know; Betty might tell you more, for he tried to be attentive to her. ”

“ It was not long after that war broke out between the settlers and the Indians, for Brandt now had a personal as well as a race grudge to gratify, though when he defeated St. Clair he spared his life in the hope that the general would reward his generosity by resigning to him his daughter. At all events, he resolved that the “frog on horseback,” whom he conceived to be his rival, should not win her. ”

“ They proceeded then slowly, Landy uttering constantly rough words of re-assurance, and Brandt seemed to establish a better control over his fears that compassion and intimate familiarity with the patient had inspired. The house was apparently deserted, though in the quietness a lamp burned low, shedding a cheerful light through the study window. Kent and Mrs. George and the babies were all over at the church, and there were none left here now to distract the old man from his sorrow. ”

“ They want a gal with something like five thousand a year at ’er back. I’d rather ’ave an Englishman any day, than a dirty little German prince!”
But Harriet Brandt was not the sort of woman to be forced into an intimacy against her will. Born under an hereditary curse, as she undoubtedly had been, and gifted with the fatal propensity of injuring, rather than benefiting those whom she took a fancy for, she was an epicure in her taste for her fellow creatures, and would not have permitted Mr. Alexander Milliken to take a liberty with her, had he been the last man left upon the earth. ”

“ I have already stated that Badius edited the Latin translation of the “Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt, with additional explanations of his own, but he was one of the first of Brandt’s imitators. He seems to have thought that Brandt’s book was not complete—that the weaker sex had not received its fair share of importance; and apparently in 1498, while Geiler was turning the “Stultifera Navis” into sermons, Badius compiled a sort of supplement to it (additamentum) , to which he gave the title of “Stultiferæ naviculæ, seu Scaphæ, Fatuarum Mulierum,” the Boats of Foolish Women. ”

“ Brandt soon secured his horse, and then appeared to give full rein to his careless, reckless spirit.
As they approached the stream, he remarked, "I say, Bute, it's too bad we can't use the pasteboards while on the jog; but I can win a five out of you by an old game of ours. I bet you I can empty my revolver quicker 'n you can."
"We'd better save our amernition and make no noise."
"Oh, pshaw! I always have better luck when I'm free and careless like. It's your sneaking fellers that always get caught. ”

“ Locher compares Brandt with Dante, and Hutten styles him the new law-giver of German poetry.
A more recent and impartial critic (Müller, "Chips from a German Workshop," Vol. III.) , thus suggestively sets forth the varied grounds of Brandt's wonderful popularity:—"His satires, it is true, are not very powerful, nor pungent, nor original. But his style is free and easy. Brant is not a ponderous poet. He writes in short chapters, and mixes his fools in such a manner that we always meet with a variety of new faces. ”

“ Associated with Brandt were two Tories who were worse miscreants than he; these were John Butler and Walter his son, who lived a few miles from Johnstown, in New York, which was the home of Brandt.
Brandt acted as the secretary of Colonel Guy Johnson, son-in-law of Sir William Johnson, who died in 1774. When Guy Johnson, alarmed for his own safety, fled to Canada, Brandt and the two Butlers went with him. There, where [170] they were safe, they hatched their plots for injuring the Americans. Brandt soon fell out with Johnson, and he and the Butlers returned to New York. ”

“ Brandt replied that Struensee could be conducted to Kronborg, whence he could pass over into Sweden, and that as much money as he desired could be given him.
[Pg 48]
"And the queen?" Falckenskjold enquired.
"Oh, I will take charge of her," Brandt answered. "I understand the art of amusing women. I will direct their pleasures: I would convert this court, where we now lead a very wretched life into a place of delight. ”

“ There are plenty in camp who would shoot me, just as they would you, should they learn of your design. I fear you do not realize what you are attempting. A man like yourself, elderly and alone, has no better chance of taking such a fellow as you describe Bute to be than of carrying a ton of ore on his back down the mountain. In all sincerity, sir, I must advise you to depart quietly and expeditiously, and give no one besides myself a hint of your errand."
"Will you please step into the outer office and make sure that no one is within earshot?" said Brandt, quietly. ”

“ On other occasions, Brandt's incredible levity inspired him with jests as to the fate they had to fear. [Pg 16] One day, after making some rather malicious remarks about the marshal of the court, he added: "After all, though, Biälke is the wisest of us, for he is taking advantage of the present time to settle down; he is making a wealthy marriage, and when we are in prison, I flatter myself that he will have pity on us, and send us every now and then some good soup." ”

“ This would have assuredly taken a very different course if the king had regarded it as an insult. On this occasion, his Majesty involuntarily thrust a finger into Count Brandt's mouth, which the latter quite as innocently seized with his teeth. The defence followed the attack: the king demanded of Count Brandt, presta te virum. Upon this Count Brandt seized the king by the coat, thrust him against the wall, and thus proved that he was stronger than the king ”

“ The woman who commences by pursing her mouth up at everything, ends by opening it wider than anybody else! There’s twice as much harm in a prude as in one of these frank open-hearted girls, whose eyes tell you what they’re thinking of, the first time you see them!”
He had been strolling down the Digue as he pondered [Pg 104] thus, and now found himself meeting the procession again.
“Come and dance with me,” cried Harriet Brandt, who, apparently as fresh as ever, was still waving her branch of lanterns to the measure of her steps. He took her hand and tried to stop her. ”